Skip to main content

Full text of "Mount Omi and beyond a record of travel on the Thibetan border"

See other formats 


This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 



at jhttp : //books . qooqle . com/ 




GIFT or 
MICHAEL REESE 





Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



Digitized by 



Google 



MOUNT OMI 
AND BEYOND 



Digitized by 



Google 



Popular Edition in Ont Volumt 
Lmrgo 800, }ric* ft. 6d. not. 

IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND 

Aii Account of a Journey in Tibet ; Capture by the Tibetan 
Authorities; Imprisonment, Torture, and Ultimate Release. By 
A. Hbnky Savage Landok, Author of "Cores, the Land of the 
Morning Calm," ftc Also various Official Documents, incradiiur 
the Enquiry and Report by J. Laxkin, Esq., appointed by the 
Government of India. 

With m Mop and &o Iltmstmtiont 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 




THE AUTHOR 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



MOUNT OMI 

AND BEYOND 

A RECORD OF TRAVEL ON 
THE THIBETAN BORDER 



BY 

ARCHIBALD JOHN LITTLE, F.R.G.S. 

AUTHOR OP 
« THROUGH THE YANGTSE GORGES," ETC. 



WITH A MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



LONDON 

WILLIAM HEINEMANN 

1901 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



JSy/>9 



All rights^ including translation, rtttrvtd 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



PREFACE 

In publishing an account of what might almost be called "A 
Walking Tour on the Thibetan Border," I tender no addition to 
the records of geographical exploration, but simply a picture of 
China as it exists far removed from Western influence — a China 
which must ere long pass away as old Japan has done, though 
with slower steps. Many travellers have passed through the 
country on their way to and from Thibet, but few have lingered 
over the Chinese portion as we did, and none have travelled 
precisely the same route. 

China is often regarded as a land of plains and paddy-fields, 
and it is a surprise to many dwellers on the Coast to learn that, 
barring the small Cheng Tu plateau in Northern Szechuan, 
there is scarcely an acre of level ground west of Ichang — nothing 
but range upon range of precipitous mountains. In penetrating 
these and in living in a far inland city like Chungking, one finds 
one's self en plein tnoyen age, and is enabled to realise the lives of 
our ancestors before the Reformation awakened men to think for 
themselves, and started them on the course which has left the 
Chinese, once our superiors, so far behind. We realise there 
how our own ancestors managed to live contentedly, as they 
undoubtedly did, in such, to us, utter discomfort. No news- 
papers, no public post, no roads beyond foot trails, no street 

285443 

Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



vi PREFACE 

cleaning, no drains, no fires in winter, and no ice in summer. 
Against these drawbacks, however, we have the brilliant 
costumes of the Middle Ages pervading China to-day, all but 
the very poorest being richly and gracefully clad, while our 
modern dress is as unbecoming as our street architecture un- 
attractive. The aesthetic feeling had the upper hand in our 
Middle Ages as it has in China to-day. We admire but with 
all our progress cannot rival the Gothic buildings of our rude 
forefathers. Chinese buildings seem to grow up intrinsically 
picturesque and in exquisite harmony with the surroundings 
among which they stand. Any one who has had the good 
fortune to peruse Garnier's Exploration of the M6kongmust 
have been impressed by the romantic beauty displayed in his 
views of the mountain cities in Yunnan and Eastern Thibet 
It is this harmony of Chinese towns and hamlets with surround- 
ing nature that adds so much to the charm of the mountain 
views in inhabited districts. In uninhabited regions one has at 
least Nature pure and undefiled — not scarred by a funicular 
railway nor blistered with mammoth hotels. 

Returning to the coast after a few years in the interior, it 
is hard to remember in what an incredibly backward condition 
ninety-nine hundredths of this vast and populous Empire yet 
remain. In Shanghai and the larger Treaty Ports, where the 
magic wand of Western progress has transformed Chinese stag- 
nation into a bustling and prosperous activity, one fancies one's 
self in Europe until (as few residents do) one ventures out of 
the " settlements " into the native cities alongside, where filth 
and decay still reign supreme. The results of the war with Japan 
are gradually breaking down, in a friendly, or, where needs must, 
a forcible way, the opposition of the officials to the enlightenment 
of their people as to better things. Hence the life I have here 



Digitized by 



Google 



PREFACE vii 

described is nearing its end. Whether this end will be utter 
decay or a new life the next century will show. At present the 
Chinese, under their generally incompetent and corrupt Man- 
darinate, are like sheep without a shepherd. The wolves are 
howling round them. Will a Chiu seng Chu, the Messiah of 
Chinese lore, arise and save them, or will the fate of Poland 
overtake them? Any change from their present state can 
hardly but be for the better. 

A simple remedy there is, had the officials but the sense to 
grasp it, namely, the opening up of China to European enter- 
prise in the same way that Japan has thrown herself open by 
the late Treaty Revision. By this means order and progress may 
yet be infused into China, her immense resources be developed, 
and she be saved from the decay and decrepitude that have crept 
over her. The Western Powers had gone on propping up the 
crazy sham until a shove from the Japanese capsized it. The 
question before us residents in China now is: Will our represen- 
tatives be instructed to work for progress, or will they be told to 
submit to snubs and to do their best as hitherto to support all 
the old abuses, fearing to face the unknown future, led by 
events instead of trying to guide them ? 

My wife was my companion on the trip to Ta Chien Lu, and 
to her energy in photographing under most difficult conditions 
and the trying interruptions of unruly crowds I am indebted for 
the illustrations that decorate this book. 

These chapters originally appeared, as they were written, in 
the columns of the North China Herald, to the kindness of 
whose editor I am indebted for leave to republish them. I am 
encouraged to hope that they may now find approval among the 
larger circle of home readers. 

The foregoing lines were written in 1899 before my return 



Digitized by 



Google 



viii PREFACE 

to China. Since then events have moved apace. Our future 
here depends it seems to me upon the action of the Allies in 
the North. If they are satisfied with the capture of Peking, 
and are bamboozled into a peace and a new treaty yielding on 
paper everything demanded, it will be i860 over again, with 
the addition that the Chinese are now roused and it will only 
be a question of waiting until they are better and more univer- 
sally armed to make another and possibly successful attempt to 
throw off the foreign yoke under which they now labour — 
officials and people alike. 

But if the Allies with Britain and Japan in the van persevere 
until they have caught the Empress and Prince Tuan and the 
rest and bring them to trial, and set KwanghsQ or a " progres- 
sive " nominee on the throne — consistently opposing partition 
meanwhile — then we may hope for the real opening up of the 
country with resulting prosperity and peace. 



ARCHIBALD JOHN LITTLE. 



Chungking, 

September 1900. 



The best thanks of the Author are due and are hereby ten- 
dered to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society and to 
Mrs. Isabella Bishop for permission to reproduce the map which 
accompanies this volume. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONTENTS 

Introduction Page i 

CHAPTER I 

CHUNGKING TO THE BRINE WELLS RIVER 

Departure from Chungking. Rock Fortress of Fa Tou Kwan. High Road 
to the Capital. Cross Ranges. Market Town of Pal She Yi. Palace 
of Heaven. Paddy-fields. The Weald of Kent. Dragon supported 
Bridge. Robbers' Heads Exposed. City of Eternal Streams. Pi Pa 
Wo'ehr, Guitar Nest. A Muddy Bath. Banyans. Peaceful Hamlet. 
Gravegrounds. City of Lung Chang. Fellow Travellers. Lion Bridge. 
Coal Mine. Fossil Bridge. Millet. Samshu. Grasscloth. Triumphal 
Arches. Monolith Transported on Men's Shoulders. Gunbarrel Tree. 
Assisi Scenery. On Lake Ferry. The Brine Wells River. Filthy 
Quarters Pp. 4-17 

CHAPTER II 

THE BRINE WELLS 

Nonworking Free Ferry. Roman Catholic Hamlet. Salt Carriers. Poling 
Up Stream. Bamboo Grove, Numerous Chinese Family. Fall into a 
Paddy Field. Tsz'Liu Ching's Scaffoldings. Grass replaces Paddy. 
Cities of Refuge. Strange View for China. No Inn would take us in. 
Usages of Chinese Restaurant. Oil Wells. Bamboo Dipper. Salt 
Boiling on a large Scale. Grass for Buffaloes. Drinkable Water. 
Storage Vats, Aqueducts, and Wooden Towers. Chain Pumps worked 
by Coolies. Intelligence of Working People. Democratic Government. 
Hoping to reach Salt in Three Years Pp. 18-33 



Digitized by 



Google 



x CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

FROM TSZ* LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 

Impoverished Salt Wells. Raging Cholera. The great System of Sweating. 
Restaurant with Highroad through it Cross Ranges. Bare Utili- 
tarianism. New Triumphal Arch. A Rainless District. Goddess of 
Mercy Precipice. Colossal Buddha's Head. Self-acting Irrigating 
Wheels. Subtle Pills. Opium Smoking. Windless Szechuan. Buddhist 
Shade Trees. Military Commander of District. Horrors of Chinese 
Inns. Mountain Fortifications. Fi-kung again. No Stone used. Re- 
ligious Feeling. O Mi To F*. Chinese Main Road. Handsome Bridges. 
Mantze Caves. At Last the River Min .... Pp. 34-50 



CHAPTER IV 

AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 

The Best Inn's Best Room. Three Rivers of Kiating. All in Flood. 
Colossal Buddha. First View of Omi. Torrential Rain. Crosses on 
the Roadway. Great Buddha Temples. Chinese Rubbings. Em- 
broideries. Missions. China Inland and Roman Catholic. Hotel Bill. 
Suchi. Pilgrims. Silk and White Wax. City of Omi. Huge Bell. 
Bronze Pagoda. Limestone Ravine. Iron Suspension Bridge. Pair of 
Flying Bridges. Butterfly Collectors. Wan Nien Sze. Paying Coolies. 
Lo-han and Hoang-ko Trees. Bronze Pusien on Elephant. Most 
Ancient Chinese Building. Pilgrims* Dress. Great Guest Room. 
Dining with a Chief Priest Vegetarian Banquet. Barefaced Begging. 
Danger from Tigers Pp. 51-69 



CHAPTER V 
ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 

Life-sized Image of Tiger. Upwards and Onwards. Temple Breakfast. 
Delightful Pine Wood. Hua Yen Ting, the one Taoist Temple on 
Mountain. Destructive Fires. On the Brink of a Precipice. Thanks- 
giving to the Earth. Lotus Rock Temple. Where Pusien washed his 
Elephant. Wealthy and Inhospitable Temple. Rest at Last I Virgin 
Forest. Wood Cutters' Path. Charred Images. Magnificent Pano- 
rama. Tei Tung Ping. First View of Snow Summits of Thibet. 
Rhododendron Jungle. Teh Fun ! From Temple to Temple. Flesh 
and Blood Images. Summit Plateau. Awful Precipice. Thousand 
Buddhas' Shrine. Fifty Taels a Night. Picnicing on the Mountain. 
Golden Pavilion Temple Pp. 70-83 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER VI 

ON OMl'S SUMMIT 

Morning View. Mountain Sickness. Life in a Monastery. Precious Relics. 
Beautiful Fragments. Myriad Buddhas' Temple. Magnificent Cloud 
Effects. Chinese District Temple Rivalries. Deft Carpenters. Two 
Table Mountains. Clean little Temple and Pleasing Priest. Erecting 
an Abbey. The Suicides* Precipice. Descending to Lei Tung Ping. 
Lamps of Mercy. Polite Begging. Glory of Buddha. Arrival of a Mis- 
sionary. Panorama Below Us. Prognostications of Misfortune 

Pp. 84-105 

CHAPTER VII 

THROUGH THE WILDERNESS AND BY THE TUNG RIYER 

Early start Down 3000 feet. Through the Wilderness. Romantic Goddess 
of Mercy River. At the Thieves' Rest. Green Snake. Wild Boars. 
Strings of Salt Porters. Exhausted by Heat. Thanks to a Taoist 
Nun. Ta Wei Plucky Pony! Extraordinary Steepness. Wild 
Mountain Inn. Once more the Tung River. Home of the Independent 
Lolo. Golden Gate Village. Coming from the Play. Almost Impos- 
sible Inn. Rapid Rise and Fall of Rivers . . Pp. 106-119 

CHAPTER VIII 

UP THE SAI KING SHAN, OR DRY PRAYER BOOKS MOUNTAIN 

Attempt to Cross over among the Unconquered Lolos. Broken Roads and 
Bridges. Romantic Ravine. Wading. One Survivor out of Twenty- 
five. Stupendous Vertical Walls. Deciding which way to Climb Sai 
King. Priest Proprietor and Mountain Guide. Rock Amphitheatre 
3000 feet high. Herd of Cattle. lily Precipice. Fairy Bridges. Up a 
Knife Edge. Then Ladders. Park-like Top. Rough Temple. Temple 
History. Rhododendron Thicket. Grinding Maize to Keep Warm. 
Cessation of Heat. Women Anchorites .... Pp. 120-132 

CHAPTER IX 

ANCIENT LOLOLAND 

Roman Catholic Village. Deforestation. Nine Thousand Feet Pass. Ver- 
tical Ravine Between Us and Our Goal. Huang Mu Market Town. 
Roman Catholic Mission. Lolo Groves. Market Day. Lolo Beauties. 
Lolos to Tea. Lolos going Home. Salt Carriers Gains. Three 
Passes. Rudeness in Market Towns. Hothouse Vegetation. Cantilever 
Bridge Pp. 133-144 



Digitized by 



Google 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X 

THE THIBETAN BORDER 

Fulin. Chien Chang Valley. Tung River. Coffins Promised Before Start 
ing. Shin Ta Kai's Mistake. His Army's Destruction. Ssechuan 
Saved from Tai-pings, No Ponies! Vegetation. Damage done by 
Rains. Cataracts of Stones. Dragons' Eggs not Destroyed. Pack 
Mule Killed on the Spot. River of Purple Mud. Steep Rock Stai r case. 
Pleasant Resting-place. Mud River. Thinking of Turning Back. 
Twenty Bags. Crossing a Stream in Spate. Girls Gathering Wax. 
Pony and Mule at Last. Dangerous Washout Itu: Old Frontier 
City Gorgeous Inn Pp. 145- 160 



CHAPTER XI 

ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE INTO THIBET 

Fei Yue Pass. Brick Tea Carriers. Phoenix Flat Tung River Again. 
Cascade of Rocks. Buddha's Ear Precipice. Boundary Between China 
and Thibet. Seven Waterfalls Uniting Frontier Town. Flowers by 
River Path. Luting Bridge. Men Stationed to Help Travellers Across 
Bridge. Granite Mountains. Thibetan Villages. Thibetans. Letters to 
Dead Relations. Thibetan Names. Bullock Hide Coracle. Vertical 
Granite Wall. Tiled Temple Village. Tung now known as Golden 
Stream. Tarchendo Ravine. Thibetan Suspension Bridges. Arrival at 
Ta Chien Lu. Buttered Tea and Beef Steak . .Pp. 161-179 



CHAPTER XII 
TA CHIEN LU, ITS LAMAS, DOGS AND PONIES 

The Three Valleys of Ta Chien Lu. European Pollution of Water. Thibetan 
Tusze or Prince. Orientalism. Rupees. Brick-tea Warehouse Inns. 
Yaks. Lamaserai. Prayer Banners. Tsatse. Lamas set their Dogs 
at Photographer. Human Skulls as Ornaments. Prayer Slates. 
Curios. No Prayer Wheels to be Sold. Om Mani Padm Hum. 
Thibetan Dignity. Batang. Changed Boundaries. Cold Wind off 
Glaciers. Roman Catholic Fathers. Variety of Tribes. Beauty of 
Features. Furs. Excellent Market Beautiful Pictures. Gloomy De- 
file. Treasure Mules in Charge of Mandarin. Gold Mining. Another 
Attempt to Cross Tung. Sure-footed Pony. Prickly Pears. Drought. 
Deforestation Pp. 180-195 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER XIII 

BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 

Theatrical Scene at Yamen. Coolies Malingering. Sleeping in Brick-tea 
Porters' Refuge. Phoenix Flat Fei Yneh Pass. Granite Monolith. 
Through Fields of Buckwheat. Ching Chi Wind. Pass of West Gap 
Barrier. Sitting Round Red-hot Coal Balls. Zigzaging up Great 
Elephant Pass. Discarded Sandals. Distilleries. Illegal. Water 
Parting Between Tung and Ya. Where Richthofen was Turned Back. 
Tavern of Yellow Earth. Who Repairs the Roads ? , .Pp. 196-207 

CHAPTER XIV 

YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 

The Splendid and Classical District. Large Farmsteads. Noble Groves. 
Careful Cultivation. Exuberance of Triumphal Arches. Carrying 
Coal. Coffinwood. Rich Red Mud. Tea for Savages. Yachow. 
Larky Young Men. Practising with Bows and Arrows. Purchasing 
Pony. Tea Bushes. Tea made into Cakes. How Carried. Cost of a 
Tea Brick. Thibetan Wax Pp. 208-217 

CHAPTER XV 

RAFTING ON THE RIVER YA 

Fall in Ya. Raft. Red Walls, Green Ferns. Yellow Lilies. Tortoise 
Gorge. Waves Wetting Us up to Our Knees. City of Coffins. Parting 
from Our Coolies. Thousand Buddhas Precipice. Figures Half Life 
Size. Indian Type. Bamboos Acting as Sounding-boards. Thirteen- 
storied Pagoda. Junction with the Tung. China Inland Mission. 
Wine Export. Boat Bargaining Pp. 218-224 

CHAPTER XVI 
FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 

Leaving Kiating. Rapid Setting on to Rocks. Beautiful Picture in 
Black and White. Many Buddhas. City of Refuge. Mantse Caves. 
Colossal Buddha. Sites of Yangtze Cities. Sui Fu. China Inland 
and American Baptist Missions. Pouring Rain. Dreaded Whirlpool 
Buying Sugar at Na Chi. Shouting at Tiger Rapid. Another Colossal 
Buddha. Luchow, the Beautiful. China Inland Mission. Dangerous 
Rapid. Beautiful Country. Dark-green Orange Groves. Distilleries. 
Graveyards. Sugar Cane. River-favoured City. Oranges, Nothing 
but Oranges I Cat Gorge. Couchant Lion. Siao Nan Hal Kwanyin's 
Shrines. Rock Fortress of Fu Tou Kwan. Mooring at the Gate of 
Great Peace Pp. 225-237 



Digitized by 



Google 



xiv CONTENTS 

CONCLUSION 

Advantages of a Walking Tour. Changed Temper of People. Deep Hold 
of Buddhism. Safety of Travel. Advantage of Native Drees. Un- 
common Stee p nes s . Climate of Szechuan. Gridironed by Streams. 
Rise of Yangtze. Cost of Journey. Tribute Verse. The Snow- 
guarded Treasure Peaks. Road to the Capital. Marco Polo's Sindafu. 
Chinese Degeneration. Manchu City. Main Yangtze according to 
Chinese. Irrigation of Chengtu Plain. Mantse Villages. Kueichow 
Ponies. Thibetan Sheep. Yaks. City of Sungpau. Foreign Missions. 
Dyangla Source of Yangtze. First Acquaintance with Sifan. Their 
Villages. Sifan Eccentricities. Hearths, Tsamba. Order and Neat- 
ness. Morals. England's Fear of Responsibility. Brick Tea. Chinese 
Destruction of Timber. Diminished Rivers. Snow-guarded Peaks. 
Crossing the Mountains. Hundreds of Green and Blue Marble Basins. 
Spick and Span Shrines. The Shrine of the Snow Mountains. Junction 
with the Sui Ning River. Natural and Artificial Obstacles to Traffic. 
Quartz Mining. Likin Examinations. Transit Passes. Lungen City. 
Magnificent Gorge. Eagle's Cliff. Amphitheatre of Limestone Moun- 
tains. Roman Catholic and Friends' Missions. White Salt Private 
Salt Wells. Filth and Opium Pp. 238-268 



Digitized by 



Google 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Author Frontufiiecc 

High Road to the Capital of Szechuan {Cheng Tu), showing Grave- 
mounds on each side, Bungalow and Crenelated Fort {Tchai) on 

HiU-tOp To fact fiaft 

A Chinese Fam-kouse among the Cross Ranges between Chungking 

Femtity Group m the House of a Chinese Official. 

Chinese Agriculture— Fields of Opium Poppies in Flower 

A Typical Road (I) in Szechuan 

Ancient Bronze Pagoda in Shin Chi Sxe Temple on Mount Omi. 

Its surface is covered with Miniature Buddhas, made probably 

in the Fifteenth Century 

Summit of Mount Omi, with Temples 

The Chief Priest of the Golden Temple, and Fragments of Bronze 

Temple, on Mount Omi {destroyed in a.d. 1544) . 
East Front of Sai King Mountain— an Amphitheatre of Rock 

three thousand feet vertical ....... 

The Confined Valley of TaChienLu 

On the Great Brich'Tea Road. Ears of Indian Corn drying under 

the Eaves of the Houses 

" Paifang" or Memorial Arch, outside the South Gate of Yachow 
Sculptured Headland on the Banks of the River Ya 

Falls of Chung Shut into Yangtze 

Entrance of Ancient Temple in Szechuan 



12 
26 

52 



58 
80 

88- 

124 
188 

208 
212 
222 

230 

240 



Sketch Map showing Mr. A . J. Little's Journeys in 1892-1897 . Attndqf Volum* 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 



INTRODUCTION 



Chungking,* under present conditions of foreign residence 
there, is at no time a desirable place to pass the summer in. 
In 1892, to the perennial drawback of confinement in a low- 
roofed Chinese house, situated in what is stated to be the most 
closely packed hive of Chinese humanity in the Empire, was 
added that of a severe epidemic of cholera. Every morning 
the streets were blocked with funerals, and coffins seemed to 
form the staple article of trade, all other business stagnating 
for the time. Attempts to gain a breath of fresh air by a 
promenade outside the walls were frustrated by the pervading 
odour of freshly made graves, which were being daily squeezed 
in between the crowd of old graves, covering every foot of the 
surrounding hills for a radius of some miles, the dead far out- 
numbering the living. As the ground is sandstone rock, bare 
in many places, in others lightly clothed with thin soil sup- 
porting a poor weedy grass on which browse numerous half- 
starved cattle, the new graves are little more than coffins 
hidden by a scanty covering of graveyard mould filched from 
the surrounding tombs. Of the old graves many are empty, 
while in others gaping skeletons are exposed to the light of 
day. In the steamy windless atmosphere peculiar to Szechuan 
such conditions do not favour the dissemination of ozone, and 
amply suffice to account for the lassitude and general ill-health 
of the foreign residents at this season. We ourselves found 

* Chungking, the chief trading town in the province of Szechuan, on the 
Yangtze river, 1500 miles from the sea, is the furthest point as yet reached 
by steamers. 

A 



Digitized by 



Google 



2 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

country walks yield us little more than a change of unpleasant 
odours, and came to the conclusion, none too soon, that if we 
were not to succumb to the " seediness " which was steadily 
lowering our vitality, we must make an effort and place our- 
selves outside the encircling ring of grave mounds and, if 
possible, attain an altitude where the air is not in that state of 
stagnation which is its constant condition at Chungking. 

It is true that on the opposite bank of the Yangtze we have 
a range of limestone mountains rising to a height of 1700 feet 
above the river level — itself some 600 feet above the ocean ; 
and that cool nights and a day temperature 8° to io° 
lower than that of the city are to be had on the summit. But 
to reside there, one has only the choice between a poor farm- 
house with mud floor, shared with the pigs and poultry, or a 
damp close room in a temple, generally crowded with visitors 
in the summer season. Even these amenities are only grudg- 
ingly accorded to the foreigner, and those of our residents who 
have tried them do not seem inclined to repeat their experience. 
Of course, a bungalow in a clearing amidst the pines, dwarf 
oak, and azalea bushes, with which the higher ridges are 
covered, would form a charming retreat from the filth and 
discomfort of the city ; but the amiable Chinese officials con- 
scientiously oppose any such anomalies as are not provided for 
in the treaty, and so were not then to be thought of. Hence, 
to obtain fresh air the only plan is to take up one's staff, and — in 
the words of the passport furnished by a compassionate Govern- 
ment to " You-lik " — " roam and pass on," availing oneself of 
such shelter as the numerous native inns scattered along the 
great highways afford. In the by-ways one is often dependent 
on a chance farm-house or village temple, which, though gener- 
ally poor and rough and ill-furnished with food at the best of 
times, yet affords an agreeable respite from the all-pervading 
dirt of the inns and the insatiable curiosity of their inmates — 
both two-legged and many-legged. 

The nearest highlands, meaning by that term anything over 
5000 feet, easily accessible, are the sacred mountains of Omi, 



Digitized by 



Google 



INTRODUCTION 3 

situated in the Kiating prefecture, about one hundred and fifty 
miles west of Chungking as the crow flies. These form the 
outermost western buttresses of the Thibetan plateau, at the 
foot of which extends the great red basin of Szechuan, whose 
red sandstone waves are bounded by and break, as it were, 
against the towering cliffs of Omi. One thus passes suddenly 
from the steaming plain (if one may so call its rugged sand- 
stone hills by comparison) of Szechuan to the breezy heights 
of the mountains, which extend unbroken to the Himalayas, 
and far beyond — mounting this great natural wall by an arti- 
ficial staircase of some 20,000 slippery limestone steps. Once 
there one is in a paradise of Nature, seasoned by the romance 
of history, the traditions of Buddhism at the time when it was 
a living, growing faith, and the aesthetic results of this vitality* 
which have survived in the innumerable ruins of a glorioust 
past, which still decorate the mountain. But to get there: 
entails a land journey of fourteen days, or a boat journey* 
towing against the July current of the swollen Yangtze, of at: 
least a month. Neither route is attractive in the dog~days» 
even apart from the risk of sun-stroke ; but failing a railroad 
to take us there in three or four hours, or a carriage-road 
by which one might drive there in three or four days, we fall 
back on the time-honoured sedan-chair, and prepare ourselves 
for a fortnight's discomfort in anticipation of a month or more 
of healthful enjoyment afterwards. How our anticipations 
were fulfilled is shown in the following daily record of our 
progress. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER I 

CHUNGKING TO THE BRINE WELLS RIVER 

Departure from Chungking— Rock Fortress of Fa Ton Kuan— High 
Road to the Capital— Cross Ranges—Market Town of Pai She Yi— 
Palace of Heaven— Paddy-fields— The Weald of Kent— Dragon Sap- 
ported Bridge— Robbers' Heads Exposed— City of Eternal Streams- 
Pi Pa Wo'ehr, Guitar Nest— A Muddy Bath— Banyans— Peaceful 
Hamlet — Grave-grounds— City of Lung Chang— Fellow Travellers- 
Lion Bridge—Coal-mine— Fossil Bridge— Millet— Samshu— Grass- 
cloth— Triumphal Arches— Monolith Transported on Men's Shoulders, 
Gun-barrel Tree— Assisi Scenery— On Lake Ferry— The Brine Wells 
River— Filthy Quarters. 

On July 7, 1897, after a last good home-breakfast, we set off in 
the usual smoky mist of Chungking at 7.15 a.m., each in a 
sedan-chair with four bearers, the blue cotton canopy over 
each extending for a distance of six yards from back to front ; 
our Kwanse or major-domo in a chair with three bearers ; seven 
coolies carrying each eighty catties (107 lbs.) of our clothing, 
bedding, money, and " stores " for three months 9 consumption ; 
one coolie headman, sent by the hong contracting for the 
labour and engaging to land us in the city of Omi Hien in 
thirteen days; and our house coolie, "Old Four" — these two 
latter carrying nothing. It is well to remember that the only 
coin current in the Chinese Empire is the copper " cash," of 
which a thousand strung by their centre hole on a straw rope 
makes a "string" or tiao. Such a string weighs 8 lbs. Ten 
strings equal in value just a sovereign, and form a load of 
80 lbs. Thus the happy possessor of one pound sterling, if 
he takes it with him in coin of the realm, requires a special 



Digitized by 



Google 




3 
O 


o. 




o 






k 


i 


2 x 


o 


c 


u 


o 


a 




'£ 




o 


u 


J= 


H 










3 


Im 

o 


bo 

c 


1 


V 




M 


a 


U 


"33 




c 


c 


e 


3 


u 


0) 


C 


t: 


* 


o 


£ 


5 


"5 
bo 




B 


'S. 


3 


ri 


M 


U 





Digitized by 



Google 



• *•• •••••• 



.•• -•- *•• • 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER 5 

porter to carry it. Silver coin, of course, can be exchanged for 
" cash " in the large towns, but the traveller's payments are all 
in copper cash. 

A thunderstorm the previous evening had happily lowered 
the temperature from 92 ° to 8o°, and our cavalcade trotted off 
gaily in the fresh morning air, through the everlasting wet 
rock-floored streets, half an hour's journey from our house to 
the West Gate which leads to the only land road out of the 
river-circled city — a gateway filthy with the droppings of the 
endless trains of coolies carrying water and soft coal in, and 
the town refuse out, past the long straggling suburb, on to the 
picturesque terrace with its carved stone balustrade over- 
hanging the cliff that here bounds the Great River eddying and 
swirling below; at this season a cataract of liquid purple- 
coloured mud. Out in the country and once past the graves 
clean pavement and fresh air tempt us to leave our chairs and 
allow our willing bearers to climb the long staircase that leads 
up and through Fu Tou Kuan without our load. We persevere, 
and are rewarded by arriving at the top of the hill drenched 
with perspiration, such as is invariably the result of motion in 
the hot-house air of this province. Fu Tou Kuan, the walled 
town or fortress built on the " neck " of the Chungking penin- 
sula — the point where an elbow of the Yangtze nearly reaches 
to a corresponding elbow of its affluent the Kia-ling, separated 
by this precipitous hiU rising 500 feet above the water — forms 
the sole approach to Chungking from the land side. There are 
a few straggling bouses on its main street, but it is architec- 
turally remarkable for its paifang (stone-archways) and huge 
monumental tablets of carved sandstone. 

We traversed a richly cultivated but comparatively unin- 
teresting country of terraced paddy-fields, interspersed with 
thick groves of bamboo, winged walnut, and cypress sur- 
rounding the many villages and walled-in country streets. We 
left Fu Tou Kuan at 9.30 (15 /1), and after another 15 U across 
this lower country where we found the air, even in our awning- 
protected chairs, very oppressive, arrived at the village of 



Digitized by 



Google 



6 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Tsan Pu at 1 1 a.m. Here, in a very decent Chinese inn, we 
tiffined, finding the inn all the better because of the delightful 
surprise of a courier from Chungking catching us up with 
letters and papers. Any one who has travelled in distant 
regions will know the intense delight this last greeting to be 
received from our friends for many a long day naturally gave 
us, and how thoroughly we read those newspapers. At one 
we started again and traversed the nearest to Chungking of 
1 the remarkable "cross ranges" that intersect the sandstone 
< plateau of Szechuan in a N.E. and S.W. direction. Steep 
flights of steps led us up to the pass — just iooo feet from the 
foot by my aneroid, through a group of steep fir-clad hills 
rising 300 to 400 feet higher. Here the paddy-fields ascend in 
serried terraces nearly as high as the pass, and above their 
bright emerald green the shining white-striped leaves of millet 
and miniature fields of spring wheat, bare rugged mountain 
limestone crowning the summits. The difference in tempera- 
ture was most marked, the air on the top being delightfully fresh 
and cool. Reaching the other side we looked over another low 
but most picturesquely broken sandstone basin, dotted with 
farms and villages, among which was pointed out to us the 
market-town of Paisheyi — our destination for the night — the 
horizon bounded by another similar "cross range" looking 
deep blue in the distance, and over which our to-morrow's path 
lay, our W.S.W. course being at right angles to its axis. It 
is characteristic that the Chinese do not lower their passes 
by cuttings and tunnels as the Japanese do. 

Descending rapidly by another lopg winding staircase we 
re-entered the hot-house, and shortly before sunset reached our 
not uncomfortable inn, before which we found our gaudy hong- 
flag hoisted by our avant courrier, covered with the decorated 
Chinese characters informing all the world and his wife that a 
great British merchant is about to take up his abode there. A 
heavy and delightfully cooling thunderstorm wound up a day 
which we found far less disagreeable than we had any right to 
anticipate at this season. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER 7 

July 8, 1892. — Up at four by candle-light ; took an hour to 
pack our beds and baggage, and started in our chairs through 
the one busy long street of the market-town. Passed many 
spacious temples, some with colossal carved monsters before the 
door, one named Tien Shang kung ("Palace of Heaven"), and 
at last emerged on the narrow stone footpath between paddy- 
fields, which goes by the proud title of Chtag-Tu-tu-lu, great or 
high road to Ching Tu. Here we got out of our chairs and 
walked from five to six, but the walk was not refreshing, as, 
although the temperature was only 8o°, there was no wind, and 
heavy mist hung round the low sandstone hills, rising 50 to 
150 feet, through which the path winds, following up a small 
turbid chocolate-coloured stream, crossed in places by substan- ' 
tial stone bridges of many arches, flat slabs on heavy square 
uprights. The dank heavy odour of the paddy, now in ear, 
made us glad to resume our chairs as soon as the sun began to 
pierce through the mist We met many strings of struggling 
coolies, by whom, and by pack animals, all the cargo traffic is 
carried on, some with sore shoulders, most with bent spines, 
through beginning their work as beasts of burden at a too early 
age. Large numbers were carrying coal, mines of which exist 
in all the " cross ranges," which appear to have tilted up the 
level strata of this Szechuan basin and rendered the mineral 
accessible to the primitive methods of Chinese miners. One 
string of mules and ponies carrying heavy packs of rice and 
produce met us in a place where we could not pass them. A 
wordy fight ensued with our cavalcade, emphasised by flour- 
ishes of bamboo poles, until ultimately the packmen, who were 
in the minority, had to give way and retreat to a point where 
they could shunt their ponies in an adjoining field of maize. 
We stopped at 8 a.m. for a hurried breakfast, the materials for 
which we carried with us, paying 18 cents for the use of the 
inn's best room in which to lay our table. After this we as- 
cended to the pass over the " cross range " (N.N.E. and S.S.W.). 
Looking back from half-way up the view was not unlike that 
over the Weald of Kent. The pass was just 1000 feet above 



Digitized by 



Google 



8 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the plateau. We got out to walk the last 300 feet and save our 
perspiring coolies, but regretted having done so, as we found 
the sun so hot that we were glad to resort to the application 
to our heads of towels dipped in the cool spring-water at the 
summit, where we rested an hour before descending the steep 
west slope to Fing Yi 9 where we took tiffin. 

We continued to descend until we reached the lively market- 
town of Wa Fong Chiao, 900 feet below the pass, the wooden 
bridge from which it is named being lined on both sides with 
roomy shops. We passed another bridge supported on backs of 
stone dragons resting on its piers. At the inn had a very close 
room, with the door into a drain-infected court-yard, its only 
opening. Thermometer 86°. Passed a bad night, kept awake by 
stench, heat, and insects. 

July 9, 1892. — Set out at 5 a.m., walked awhile on the stone 
path between the dank-smelling paddy-fields, relieved occa- 
sionally on the higher ground by the graceful, tall millet, 
crowned with its feathery tufts of now rapidly ripening fruit. 
One-fourth of the land i3 devoted to this alcoholic grain. At 
7.30 arrived at village of Ta Chang, where we breakfasted off 

> native sponge cake and Puerh tea. It was amusing as we sat 
in the covered way, with crowds of coolies taking their morning 
rice and fixings, to watch the ceaseless traffic through what 
seemed to be the centre of the cha shih — caft restaurant — many 
boys among them — one not over ten — carrying his load of two 
baskets of coal. Passed Siao Ma Fang, where were exposed 
on pikes the heads of two robbers who, last year, stole five 
donkeys laden with treasure; then ascended a platform of 

I sandstone with scarped sides, 450 feet high, comparatively level 
on the top and covered with paddy-fields. A five-miles walk 
across this brought us to its western brink, were we enjoyed an 
extensive view over the valley below to the "cross range" 
beyond, and in the middle distance the walls of Yung Chuan 
Hsien could just be distinguished climbing a low hill, and with 
its many trees, and no buildings, visible from our point of 

'view — the branch of a banyan tree — looking like a nobleman's 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER » 

walled-in park at home. From this point, 650 feet above the 
plain, the path falls rapidly to 230 feet, and, traversing a narrow j 
valley for four miles, we passed through the gates and entered the 
walls of YungChuan Hsien (" City of Eternal Streams"). The 
suburb was squalid and thinly populated, but in the heart of the 
city we found some good business streets thronged with people. 
Here at eleven we stopped to " noon," starting again at two. 
(Row in inn over thief caught stealing A's Japanese leather- 
cushion and her bath-towel from her chair.) Although very 
hot — 90 in inn room — we preferred our chance outside, and 
after rising 350 feet (500 feet above Chungking) we " rested to 
cool " in the little village of Pi Pa Wo'ehr (" Guitar Nest ") and 
stayed there over an hour, our coolies being almost dead beat. 
Resumed our chairs at 4 p.m., when it clouded over and a 
light breeze came up the valley. Seeing a nice pool of chocolate- 
coloured water below a really fine waterfall — 160 feet wide and 
20 feet deep, but of muddy water, I stopped and had an enjoy- 
able swim, then on in chair, river flowing in a gorge it has cut j 
out for itself almost 70 feet deep. Crossing the river on 
another shop-lined roofed-in bridge, we ascended to the cooler 
air (86°) of Hoang-Ko-Shu ("banyan tree ") 430 feet, arriving 
at 6.45; dined at 7.30, off delicious black-boned spatchcock^ ( 
with stewed plums and rice, washed down with lao chiu (the 
" vin du pays," a sort of sherry-flavoured beer fermented from 
the glutinous rice). 

Uncomfortably hot to-day, and we felt somewhat discouraged 
at ten more such days in prospect ; but the coolies tell me that 
henceforth our road lies on higher ground, and this cool place 
where I write seems an earnest of it. 

July 10, 1892. — Up at four, after cool, refreshing sleep; 
heavy rain, and thermometer fallen to 76 ; almost chilly. 
Curious that Chinese, in this country of easily worked sand- 
stone do not use it in their buildings, except incidentally; 
probably its porosity renders it unsuitable in this humid climate ; 
but here, at a halting-place consisting of a heavy-thatched roof 
thrown across the road, with wide open restaurant on either 



Digitized by 



Google 



io MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

side, we find the pillars made of squared posts of red sandstone, 
into which the framework of wood which supports the roof is 
mortised. Stone is used for the numerous extremely elaborate 
and really beautiful paifang which adorn the roads in this pro- 
vince, where chaste widows and centenarians are so abundantly 
commemorated that one wonders who pays for all, and we see 
new ones still being erected. These, though of stone, are an 
exact counterpart of a wooden archway, and the stone pillars 
and beams are all mortised, the extremities carved, as are their 
wooden prototypes, and the panels with illustrative scenes in 
bas-relief let into the interspaces, the three storeys comprised 
in the arch being roofed by stonework cut to imitate the tiles 
which would be used to cover a similar erection in wood. Of 
the three archways the centre one spans the road, the two side 
ones usually extending into the adjoining fields. One sees 
solid stone walls surrounding the gardens and groves in which 
the resident gentry and well-to-do farmers have their homes ; 
but the inhabited buildings, where not of brick or, more fre- 

[ quently, of lath and plaster, have walls made of the red soil of 
the country hammered in in frames, which nothing but the wide 
projecting eaves of the tiled or thatched roof save from being 
washed away by the first thunderstorm. Most country-houses 

\ have their wooden framework visible, the interstices being 

' filled in with bamboo laths plastered white ; this gives them a 
picturesque and cheerful appearance, while the brick chimney, 
which the soft coal used for cooking in this province necessi- 
tates, adds to their homelike character. 

Off again at 7.40; descended through picturesque, steep 
valleys, well wooded (mostly wood-oil and tallow trees), and in 
sweet fresh air, until we had to go down again to the muggy 
paddy-land. It was market-day, and the streets were crowded 
with countrymen, protected by their wide-spreading bamboo 
rain hats, who made way for us with customary Szechuan 
civility; crossed two very handsome carved stone bridges, each 

1 arch crowned by dragons and " monsters," their heads rising 
up as it were out of the arch to the balustrade. We continued 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER n 

for the rest of the day ascending and descending the tortuous i 
jiarrow valleys into which the sandstone plateau is cut up, the 
path going sometimes along the front of one wall, often crossing 
the terraced paddy-covered bottom, then half-way up the slope 
or cliff covered with the tall millet. The villages are delightfully 
embowered in groves of banyan, bamboo, and deciduous trees, 
but many of the hills are devoted to bare grave-mounds, 
and look as though covered with an eruption. No trees are 
allowed on these, which are thus a blot on the otherwise fair 
landscape, and so numerous are they as to make the proportion 
of good land they occupy a perceptible loss to this over-popu- 
lated country. The road we found monotonous, notwithstanding 
its ups and downs, the highest " up " to-day being (the "Drug 
Store ") 600 feet. Thence we descended till we reached our 
destination for the night — the walled city of Lungchanghien 
(300 feet), a poor sort of place, little better than Ichang city, 
though containing the inordinate number of spacious, highly ' 
decorated temples which every Szechuan place, large or small, 
seems to boast. 

Our inn was most spacious, with clean paved stone floor, and 
was handsomely decorated. The kuanting, or official guest 
room, which we occupied, was about 12 feet by 18 feet and 20 feet 
high. The landlord is a Roman Catholic. Quite cool to-day, 
76 in our stopping-places; walked, morning and evening, 
about six miles, and but for rain should have walked more. 
Day's journey, 90 It (27 miles), performed in seven hours' 
actual time. Met strings of coolies carrying loads of salt from 
Tsz* Liu Ching (self-flowing wells). Some officials and mer- 
chants staying in the inn called in the evening and we talked 
the usual banalities, but I found their dialect an obstacle to 
deeper intercourse. When returning their call there was 
nothing to do in the dim light but smoke opium, which they 
urged me join in. One had been to Singapore to sell Szechuan 
drugs to his compatriots there ; he had spent only one month 
in the place ; he was most effusive, and commenced by stating : 
"I have visited your honourable country," which he took 



Digitized by 



Google 



12 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Singapore to be. Bed soon after nine as usual. A wet, cold 
day. 

July 1 1. — Off at 6.30, after usual cup of tea ; walked through 
city and suburb a mile. A. bought two pretty folding fans for 
SO cash (2d.). To Sz Tsz' Chiao (Lion Bridge), seven lofty 
hemisphere arches with handsome parapet, through the massive 
piers of which rushed a foaming chocolate stream. Took 
canoes below the bridge, just large enough to hold our sedan 
, chairs, one in each, and we sat in our chairs and paddled down 
— 20 H (6 miles)— the stream, here about 100 yards wide, and, 
like the Severn at Bewdley, flowing in places at the foot of 
picturesque wooded hills, bamboos, and hoangko (Ficus infec- 
toria), a species of banyan, over a rapid to Mung Tsz' Chiao, 
one of the low bridges built across a wide, comparatively 
shallow spot, a natural ford. This bridge was composed of 
thirty-six arches, the piers huge stone monoliths, united by 
long slabs a foot or more thick. Six or eight arches in the 
centre had been carried away, and on the tops of the piers, 
which had remained standing, narrow stages, composed of 
three small fir-tree trunks lashed together, had been laid. 
There was a continuous traffic of carrying coolies on the bridge. 
Through one arch higher than the rest we were just able to 
pass by taking off the tops of our sedans, shooting the fall of 
between one and two feet with great precision. We paddled 
up a small side stream and landed at a spot where boats were 
being laden with coal for Lung Chang, brought down from a 
mine in the hill about five miles higher up. This coal was 
being carried by strings both of coolies and pack oxen, the 
former carrying 1 cwt. and the latter 2 cwts. The oxen were 
the small yellow hoang niu of the province, 1 1 or 12 hands high. 
The sun being obscured by thick clouds and a slight drizzle 
falling, we were able to walk on, notwithstanding the crowded 
state of the narrow roadway, for the people all made way 
for us most politely, and it was curious to see how deftly 
the oxen, many unled and alone, cleared their packs of pro- 
jecting eaves, sedans, and other obstacles in the narrow path. 



Digitized by 



Google 




& 

bo 

c 






Digitized by 



Google 



• • ■ ■■ 

» • • • « 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER 13 

At 9.30 reached Tsao Chiu Fang (distillery) where we 
lunched in another really fine inn. Tsao Chiu Fang is one of 
the many long straggling villages of one long busy main 
street that occur at intervals of every two or three miles, 
having grown up along this highway, which unites the com- 
mercial with the political capital of the province. Just previous 
to reaching this place we came in view of the " cross range " 
{the fifth), which we had been crossing yesterday afternoon and 
this morning, until we reached a break through which the road 
passes, traversing a low pass (500 feet) on which is built the 
town of Hoang Niu Ya (byre). This we reached at 3 p.m., 
having previously traversed the crowded streets of another long 
market-town. Here our coolies — it kung or substitutes — 
dumped our chairs down in the crowded highway and dis- 
appeared, leaving us the most uncomfortable cynosure of the 
lively market gathering, who were unpleasantly inquisitive but 
in no way rude. Descending to the west side of the pass, we 
traversed at its foot (300 feet) the market-town of Shih Jen 
Chiao ( Fossil Bridge). This was another of those highly decora- 
tive bridges in which each pier is a colossal stone animal — here 
elephants, frogs, and dragons — flat huge stone slabs being, as 
it were, laid across their backs. Otherwise the country was 
rather monotonous, notwithstanding its broken levels and pre- 
cipitous rocks crowned with firs. The "cross range," wherever 
we caught sight of it through breaks in the low hills we were 
traversing, looked wild and picturesque with its steep harvest- 
covered slopes; but our path lay through endless fields of 
paddy and plantations of tall millet, with, at intervals, magnifi- 
cent banyans (some single trees looking like a grove in the 
distance) under which our coolies constantly took short 
rests to drink tea and smoke. Certainly half the country 
— all the slopes — is covered with millet, which is used ex- 
clusively for distilling the strong spirit called samshu, which 
sells by weight at the price of id. to 2d. per lb., 
according to quality. The nettle from which is made 
the fibre used in the manufacture of grass-cloth or, as the 



Digitized by 



Google 



i 4 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Chinese call it, hsia-pu (summer-cloth), is also conspicuous 
hereabouts. 

We must have passed through nearly ioo paifang (stone 
archways) to-day, and past inejporial tablets innumerable. 
These latter are solid structures, with characters deeply carved 
on them a foot or more square, the cutting richly gilt, and are 
mostly in honour of incorruptible officials, to whose growth the 
rich air of this well-to-do province would seem to be eminently 
favourable. Boundary stones of similar Brobdingnagian pro- 
portions are also noticeable. One yesterday informed us that 
we were traversing the southern corner of the Ta Tsu magis- 
tracy, the city of that name lying 97 It (30 miles) to the north. 
It is in this district that the Roman Catholic Christians have been 
so bitterly persecuted these last few years, the account for which 
had just been settled, we heard in Chungking, through the 
perseverance of Father Pons, who went to Peking to plead 
the cause of his co-religionists in person. To-day we were 
notified of the termination of the western boundary of the Yung 
Chang district and of the eastern boundary of the Lung Chang 
district; but in some incomprehensible manner, and for a 
reason only understandable by Chinese, the former stands 
about 50 yards west of the latter, so that the two districts 
would seem to overlap. Arrived at Lung Chang, 6 p.m., 400 
feet above Chungking; thermometer 8o°. 

July 12, 1892. — We left with regret the comfortable, not to 
say gorgeous, inn, with its many court-yards, galleries, and 
stage, like an old English inn — Hung Ng&n Fang (" Overflowing 
Grace Hotel") — at Lung Chang to take the by-road to Kiating, 
on which we were told the inns were second-rate. But we never 
expected to have to camp in such a pig-sty as that in which I 
now write, and with the thermometer at 90°, and with three more 
similar nights in view, we regret we did not take the Cheng Tu 
route, thence by boat down to Kiating, instead of turning off, 
as we have done, in order to see the Salt Springs, which, 
if this heat continues, would have been better put off till our 
return. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER 15 

We set off this morning quite cool — thermometer 75 ° — 
skirting the river which runs past the west wall of the city, in a 
mist through which the setting moon was just visible over our 
path, which was the usual paved way, but 2 feet 6 inches wide 
instead of the 5 feet highway of yesterday. Coolies were already 
setting out from the city with the useful but malodorous \ 
buckets (the Japanese carry these covered, the Chinese never), 
who, going along ahead and in rear of our chair, made it a 
work of time and patience to get extricated from them, which \ 
we did not entirely do until they ultimately dropped off by side 
paths to the surrounding farms. The sun rose clear and 
cloudless for the first time since leaving Chungking, and 
j>resaged a hot day. We ascended still between the eternal * 
paddy-fields, some 200 feet, to another broken, highly cultivated, 
but almost treeless plateau, except where the noble hoangko 
trees and bamboo groves gave shade to the farm-houses and to 
the numerous rest places. Suddenly we found the path skirting 
a precipice, and the view of a beautiful Yosemite valley in 
miniature burst upon ua A waterfall at the head of the ravine, * 
whose stream our road crossed, completed the analogy. The 
basin, some three or four miles across, was walled in by tree- 
crowned precipices, and from its floor rose low, rocky, tree- 
QDvered hills, the comparatively level bottom being a sea of 
paddy-fields, with snug farm-houses scattered about. We 
crossed our highest point to-day at 8 a.m., Pu Chia Chang 
(market-town of the Pu clan) 2840 by my aneroid, which, as it \ 
was a brilliant, cloudless day, I reckon to mean a height of 
650 feet above Chungking. We traversed another long, busy, 
crowded one-street village, called Lung Shih Ch£n (" Dragon / 
Stone Mart ") 500 feet, with an inordinate number of butchers* 
stalls, at which fresh-killed pork — never more than one, usually 
half a porker, on one stall — was on sale in unusual quantity. 
Thence on and up and down eternal staircases, and winding in 
and round small, highly cultivated, but monotonous valleys, their 
floors rice, and sides, up to the summits, tall millet, with here 
and there beans, sugar-cane, the China grass nettle, and hemp. 



Digitized by 



Google 



16 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

The road wound about in a most ridiculous manner, often 
- doubling on itself in order to follow round the boundary of a 
paddy-field, which it might far more easily have crossed, and so 
narrow that the traffic was frequently jammed for space. At 
one spot, fourteen coolies carrying a squared sandstone post, 
with seven bamboos resting on their shoulders, advanced 
literally at a snail's pace, setting down their burden every 
twenty steps for a rest, all naked and streaming with perspira- 
tion. We had to wait behind them a quarter of an hour before 
we came to a place wide enough for our chairs to pass them. 
We met salt coolies continuously the whole way, and had to 
shout to them to wait for us to pass in a place where there was 
no room. We also met strings of poor porters carrying young 
fir trees, sawn planks, and coffin wood, and apparently fearfully 
overloaded; all had a worn harassed look, and often bent 
spines, and not spirit enough left in them to care for our 
strange appearance by a word or sign. At 10.30 we spread 
our table-cloth in a wayside restaurant, where our coolies 
breakfasted, and we tiffined off chicken and bread and cheese, 
with a treat in the shape of a drink of raspberry vinegar 
which we carried with us, and water in lieu of the refreshing 
but monotonous milkless and sugarless tea. It being very hot 
we stopped till 2 p.m., amusing ourselves with chess. 

Went on through similar country — in which we heard no bird 
sing, but only the croaking of the frogs in the paddy-fields — 
till, at 4 p.m., we descended from the plateau into a better wooded 
and more cheerful but hotter country. The edge of the 
plateau reminded me of the rocks and trees which form the 
background of the mediaeval paintings of the Holy Family and 
of Saints, and which, I believe, is a representation of the 
scenery near Assisi. Though picturesque, it is monotonous 
in this July season, when there is not a flower to relieve the 
ubiquitous dark green of the hoangko, palms, millet, and the 
everlasting paddy. Crossed a stream of 50 yards, falling over 
a natural rock-weir, in the side of which a new channel, 
10 feet wide by about the same in depth, had been hewn in 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHUNGKING TO BRINE WELLS RIVER 17 

the soft rock to convey water to two horizontal wheels, 
which turned stone rollers to grind rice by a stone wheel 
revolving round a circular trough let into a wooden floor 
above. At sunset descended in a close, steamy dell! in which 
was the hamlet of . Niu-hu-tu (Ox-Lake Ferry), past which *. 
flows the wide To Kiang, an affluent of the Yangtze: its \ 
narrow streets seemed literally jammed* with naked humanity, 
and a mob followed us into the inn, and was only prevented by 
our posse of twenty servants from invading the miserable room 
assigned to us. 



B 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER II 

THE BRINE WELLS 

Non-working Free Ferry — Roman Catholic Hamlet — Salt Carriers — 
Poling up Stream — Bamboo Grove — Numerous Chinese Family — Fall 
into a Paddy-field— Tax' Liu Ching's Scaffoldings— Grass Replaces 
Paddy — Cities of Refuge — Strange View for China— No Inn would 
take us in — Usages of Chinese Restaurant — Oil Wells — Bamboo 
Dipper — Salt-boiling on a Large Scale— Grass for Buffaloes — 
Drinkable Water — Storage Vats, Aqueducts, and Wooden Towers — 
Chain Pumps worked by Coolies — Intelligence of Working People — 
Democratic Government — Hoping to Reach Salt in Three Years. 

Wednesday, July 15, 1892. — At daylight, 78°, we were 
carried in our chairs half a mile through narrow, winding 
streets, when, after the close, filthy air of the inn and the 
crowded town, we emerged on to the bank of a fine, fast- 
flowing river, about 400 yards wide, with picturesque red 
sandstone cliffs facing us, crowned with dark green trees, 
giving us a reminder of the Avon at Bristol. Carried along 
over the dirt and rubbish heaps and past the rows of ruinous 
'shanties that squeeze themselves between the boundary proper 
of every river-side town in China and its river — and through 
which none but Chinese chair-bearers would ever have found it 
possible to edge their way — we were at length deposited, still 
sitting in our sedans, on the floor of a roomy flat-bottomed 
ferry-boat, and, after pulling up in shore half a mile we quickly 
shot across the stream, and were landed at the foot of the steps 
of the western side of the " Ox-Lake Ferry." This is properly 
a free ferry, as is shown by the elegant temple built at the head 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 19 

of the steps and under the cliff, and by the inscription in four 
large bright gold characters over the entrance, "Free Ferry 
Public Hall." We asked where is the free ferry, and why 
have we been mulcted in 400 cash ? Some men in the crowd 
replied : " It doesn't work," and pointed to some small, dilapi- 
dated water-logged boats tied up under the bank. I could get 
at no reason, but our own men told me it was owing to the 
opposition of the boatmen. As these free ferries, which are 
numerous in China, have all more or less rice land bequeathed 
to them by their benevolent founders, it would have been inter- 
esting to learn the " true inwardness " of this non-functioning 
ferry had time permitted, which it unfortunately didn't. In a 
picturesque break in the ruby wall, and about half a mile 
higher up, where the river sweeps round in a bold curve at the ' 
foot of the cliffs it has made for its framing, what appeared to 
be a neat cluster of Szechuan farm-houses was pointed out to 
us by one of our chair-bearers, himself a Roman Catholic, as a 
Tien Chu Tang, or " Hall of the Lord of Heaven." Numbers 
of these quiet Christian hamlets, unobtrusive except in their 
conspicuous cleanliness, are scattered throughout this province 
of Szechuan, many under a native priest, only visited at times 
by a European confrere. As at every spot where the European 
has put down his foot in this land, the eye and the nose rejoice 
in meeting with these cases in the general ocean of filth and 
decay, and the traveller always regrets it if time prevents his 
visiting them and giving a temporary respite to his injured 
senses. 

Our path entered a ravine, following up a small stream, and 
almost the first regular valley we had yet threaded, the bulk 
of the country consisting of irregular ravines and hollows of 
all shapes and sizes bordered by more or less precipitous hills, . 
rising about 150 feet above them — the hollows completely filled 
by terraced paddy-fields, the heights covered by the equally 
tiresome kaoliangs not a square foot of uncultivated ground 
anywhere, unless the fine bamboo copses surrounding the farm- 
houses may be so termed, and the spots where the magnificent 



Digitized by 



Google 



ao MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

hoangko trees shade wayside shrines and frequent resting* 
places. After ascending this valley about two miles in a 
north-westerly direction, we turned off south-west, and crossed 
another of the many low passes, this one 150 feet by the 
aneroid, approached on either side by steep stone staircases. 
We met long trains of salt- and some sugar-carriers, men 
carrying 140 lbs. and miserable boys of ten years carrying 
50 lbs. weight ; the cause, probably, of the spinal curvature 
that afflicts no small proportion of these hardly-used beasts of 
burden. At nine we reached the busy market-town of Shin- 
tienpu (New Shop), having come 30 U (9 miles), where we 
breakfasted in a large, dirty wayside restaurant, all open to the 
street as usual, and our breakfast-table, with its white table- 
cloth and knives and forks, the centre of an admiring crowd of 
half-naked men and boys and women. Our remnant of bread 
had turned mouldy and had to be thrown away, but we had 
some biscuits left, thus letting ourselves down to rice diet by 
slow degrees. At noon reached the banks of the Brine Wells 

' river at a spot called Hsien Tan, or " Dangerous Rapid "; we 
here took boat. The river comes down from Tsz' Liu Ching 
(Self-flowing Wells), but it appears to be cheaper to send the 
salt by road on coolies' backs and load the boats here than to 
ship it by water direct, although we saw an equal number of 
small flat-bottomed junks at both places. However, by loading 
here the Hsien Tan is avoided, although it certainly was not a 
very formidable obstacle to-day. Below it a fleet of junks 
were loading salt for down river, and above it was moored a 
row of the small travelling boats, with the capacious lofty 
arched mat awnings that distinguish the floating vehicles of 
this wind-less and comfort-loving province. Into two of these 

1 we now stowed ourselves, our chairs, our retinue of twenty 
persons, and our belongings generally, and gave our tired 
bearers a well-earned respite from the hot sun while we were 
poled 20 It (6 miles) up stream against a sluggish, almost 
imperceptible, current, through low steep hills entirely covered 
with the ubiquitous maize and millet, relieved by a few groves 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 21 

of magnificent bamboos, the stream about 100 yards wide and • 
of the usual chocolate colour. In an hour and a half we reached 
Mu Tze To (Wood Reach) and betook ourselves again to the 
endless stone staircase. The heat was very oppressive as we 
were carried along the bottom of a narrow valley through 
close-smelling paddy-fields ; so much so that we ordered our 
men, nothing loath, to carry us across to a bamboo grove on the 
opposite slope, where we might at least be protected for a while 
from the vertical rays of the noonday sun. The thermometer ' 
in my closed chair was 95 °, and the air was charged with the [ 
fetid, though invisible, vapours from the stagnant water of the j 
paddy-fields. These we traversed, and ascended the heights 
on the opposite side of the valley until we reached a magnifi- 
cent grove of large bamboo clusters, covering some three or 
four acres, under which we and the tired bearers of our three 
sedans reclined. It seems to be always cool in the hottest 
weather under bamboos, and here, at last, a slight air was 
stirring, which was most grateful. A small stream which went 
to irrigate the paddy-fields flowed at our feet, and in this we 
dipped towels to wrap round our heads, and thoroughly enjoyed 
the cool shade, although at the risk of arriving at our destination 
(the Brine Wells) after sunset. 

But we were not left long to enjoy our peaceful rest undis- 
turbed. No apparently quiet spot in China that I have ever 
visited is free from Chinese. Even in forests on the mountains 
there are wood-cutters, grass-cutters, and charcoal-burners, J 
and let one espy the strange barbarian and he becomes the 
avant-garde of a crowd which swarms in from every point of 
the compass. In China it is truly a case of stamping the foot 
and armies arising out of the ground; so here, we had not 
been five minutes alone ere we were completely sur- 
rounded by a wondering crowd of men, women, and chil- 
dren. They all came from a farm-house, or rather from a 
cluster of houses situated on the farther edge of the grove. 
I counted 150 heads. These were all one family, and rejoiced 
in the common name of Wang. Though troublesome they 



Digitized by 



Google 



22 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

were polite enough, and brought us cool spring water to 
drink. 

After this agreeable rest, at four o'clock we set out once 
more into the hot sun. Turning an angle in the narrow road 
my two forward chair-bearers slipped into the paddy-field 
below, the chair, with myself inside, following. I scrambled 
out, plastered with purple mud, divested myself of all but my 
flannelette trousers, and started again with the poles of the 
sedan decorated with the remainder of my garments hung out 
to dry. Emerging from the narrow valley the path led through 
a more open country and skirted the bank of the Tsz Liu 
Ching river, upon which we had voyaged in the morning. 
And now a change came over the prospect; we were still 
journeying through paddy-fields, but in front of us the western 
horizon was defined by another of the " cross ranges " which 
break up the sandstone basin, and on its level summit tall 
erections, unlike anything Chinese as far as our experience 
hitherto had led us to understand the term, stood forth boldly 
against the evening sky. The celebrated salt wells of 
Tsz 9 Liu Ching were before us, an undoubted fact, and amidst 
them we had to find our lodging for the night. Tramping on 
to the foot of the hills we then descended from our chairs for 
our usual evening walk, and on mounting the hill were agree- 
ably struck by noticing that the endless cultivation, which had 
surrounded our path during the past week, here came to an 
end and was replaced by cropped grass. How is this? we 
asked ourselves. Until now, nowhere space even to sit down 
by the wayside, so valuable to the farmer is every available 
inch of ground. A little farther, and lo ! a triple-terraced 
paddy-field occupying the head of a small ravine, also grass- 
covered and fallow, while the valleys we have just traversed, 
wide and narrow, are one expanse of paddy, now in full ear. 
The only solution of the problem can be that here grass is a 
more valuable crop than rice, and this we found to be the case, 
so great is the demand for fresh fodder for the buffaloes that 
work the brine pumps. We passed more than one isolated 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 23 

tower-like framework supporting the wheel over which the 
bamboo line, that lifts the brine bucket, passes, as we joy- 
fully trudged over the grassy plateau until, on the highest 
point of the ridge, a walled city came in sight. This turned 
out to be not a city proper at all, but one of the chat or 
cities of refuge, with which almost every precipitous height in 
Szechuan appears to be crowned, and is known as Ta Ngan 
Tsai, or " Citadel of Great Repose." Close under its rampants 
are rows of brine wells surmounted by the usual scaffolding, 
and we caught sight of house-roofs within, so that, had we 
gone out of our way to visit it, we should probably have found 
something more than the forest of Indian corn and tall millet, 
which usually obstructed our progress when curiosity had led 
us on other occasions to clamber up the inevitable steep ascent 
and enter the heavy stone-arched gateway that gives access to 
the enclosure. These chat are thoroughly Chinese in the 
solidity of construction and unsparing labour which they 
display, wherever " defence " comes into account. In means 
of offence they are curiously deficient and neglectful. These 
grand chat are comparatively modern (about 100 years) and 
in no way differ in external appearance from usual walled 
Chinese cities, the walls, gates, and battlements being of 
dressed sandstone with a broad paved road covering the 
earthen encased mound that in both cases constitutes the 
rampart ; and alongside these solid works, built only for use 
under circumstances of rare and most unusual occurrence, we 
find the ordinary dwellings, with the exception of those of a 
few wealthy gentry, of the flimsiest possible construction, not 
even excepting shops which house the richest silks under their 
loose-tiled roofs, and the yam$ns t or official residences, which 
appear to be as much on their last legs as does the government 
and civilisation generally to the eye of the order-loving 
11 Western " ; but they have long served their purpose notwith- 
standing, and may not improbably long continue to do so. 

Descending to the cutting in which the river — here sixty or 
more yards wide — flows in a swift deep current, we continue along 



Digitized by 



Google 



24 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

a path some 50 feet above the water until it apparently comes 
< to an end at a rocky point round which the river doubles back 
out of sight; suddenly we see our chairs, which we are 
following, enter the wide doorway of a large Buddhist temple 
which crowns this, as almost every other prominent point in 
devout Szechuan. We must leave the quiet country valley* 
traverse the wide central court-yard, and emerge through the 
opposite doorway on to a wide-paved terrace overlooking a 
• busy city romantically situated on the two banks of a rocky 
1 river, united by a many-arched bridge, some of whose piers are 
natural rock masses. Fleets of junks, with their single masts 
and tall matsheds, filled quiet bays among the rocks, while 
rows of silent factories, busily engaged in producing the cargoes 
of salt, for which they were waiting, held aloft their smoke-free 
towers and, unlike anything Chinese, produced the effect of a 
manufacturing city of Europe or America. The short twi- 
light was rapidly waning into starlit darkness and the many 
lamps on the heights and along the river banks completed 
the picture, could we have made one to do it justice. As 
Chinese municipalities provide no lights to show the way 
amidst the muck-heaps and broken paving, every pedestrian 
after sunset carries in his right hand a big decorated paper 
lantern at the end of a stick to light his path before him ; hence 
a most picturesque effect is produced, especially on the crowded, 
unrailed bridge. 

We now re-enter our chairs, hoping in a few minutes to be 
carried into the court-yard of a shelter-giving, if unclean inn, 
with our supper-table set out, as usual, awaiting us. Our 
44 boy," Kwanse (Manager), as the natives designate him, 
had gone on some time before in company with the tsai fen, 
or " official messenger," who conveys (at our expense, but not 
by our request, be it noted) the barbarian traveller from one 
city to another, and whose duty it is to see the passported 
stranger safe out of one magisterial district and duly handed 
over to the responsibility of the officer of the next district. By 
these everything had been arranged in advance each day 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 25 

hitherto, so we had perfect confidence. Our coolies carried us 
down the wide staircase leading from the temple terrace into 
the crowded " water w street, or Shing Lung Kai (Flourishing 
Street), by which name the town on this, the left bank of the 
river, is known. To our surprise, we passed on through Shing 
Lung Kai and crossed the bridge connecting it with the 
opposite town, called Chang Chia T'o (Pool or Anchorage of the ' 
Chang Hamlet — lit. " family ")," and were carried along a stone 
bund — river on our right, shops on our left, and crowds of half- 
naked, noisy humans everywhere. Here we were set down, 
our chair-bearers explaining that no one had come to give them 
the name of the inn as usual. After waiting thus patiently half 
an hour in the dark, surrounded by the usual inquisitive crowd, 
while our bearers had gone off for refreshment, we were taken 
up again and once more deposited in the middle of a dirty, 
crowded, noisome smelling street, attracting a still greater 
crowd, who became quite excited on discovering that a 
Yangpotsz (foreign woman) was on show in one of the chairs 
and could be scrutinised by a lantern held up to her face. It 
was now 9 o'clock, and tired of waiting longer in this ignomin- 
ious position, I got out and insisted on finding quarters in one 
of the inns near, there being several in our immediate neigh- 
bourhood. At length we found plenty of room for ourselves, 
our chairs, and our train of twenty natives, including porters, 
in the Yung Hua Kuan Tsan, or "Perpetually-flowering 
Official Hotel." Like all the houses on this side of the street, 
the Yung Hua was built with its back to the rock, and so 
we ascended by a flight of steep rock steps to the kuanting, 
or officers' pavilion, which is invariably situated at the rear 
and next the cabinets tfaisance, which hereabouts are simple 
basins hewn out of the rock, open to all. In our position 
of distinguished guests we always occupied the kuanting with 
its adjacent amenities, and were never sorry to rise by candle- 
light and effect our retreat as soon as we could see our way 
but here, though sheer hunger compelled us to eat a hasty 
meal there, sleeping in the kuanting was out of the question. 



Digitized by 



Google 



26 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

The walls were black and the floor encrusted with several 
inches of mud, upon which it was impossible to adjust the 
table upright ; there was a floor above which was inhabited, 
and we had to send up and request its occupants to keep quiet 
while we were eating, as every movement they made sent down 
a shower of black dirt upon our food. Chinese, we found, 
invariably yield to such requests with good grace. Nothing 
surprised us more on this trip than the way in which the 
Chinese — probably unable to sleep for the mosquitoes and 
worse vermin — spend these hot summer nights talking, 
smoking opium and amusing themselves till midnight, and 
then resume their journey at daylight; they eke out then- 
sleep with a short siesta during the noohday halt. The 
noise up till midnight is something inconceivable. The front 
part of the inn is a restaurant, and here the waiters shout out 
the name of each dish as ordered, intoning^ as on the Chinese 
stage, the cook and changkweitih (accountant) being thus both 
simultaneously advised. Then, when the eating and tea- and 
wine-drinking are over, and the kitchen fire is out, comes 
the distribution of beds — wadded quilts, which are preserved 
neatly folded up on the shelves which occupy two sides of the 
accountant's room, the other two sides being open, one to the 
street, one to the restaurant, screened off only by a high 
counter. Each guest goes up, pays 24 cash (id.) f and has 
a quilt given him which he spreads on the permanent straw 
mattress, rolling himself up in it in the cool of the morning. 
Each man has to give his name and occupation, &c, which 
the innkeeper is bound by law to keep an accurate record 
of; this is called kuahao, or "posting the name/' and for 
this a fee of 6 cash (\d.) from coolies, and 12 cash (£</.) from 
travellers of a superior class is exacted. We two, for the use of 
the kwantung (hot water), and rice & discretion usually paid 
700 or 800 cash (25. 4^. to 25. &£). Our boy paid 120 
cash, including his evening meal (value 70 cash), say, $d. 
in all, and our coolies about id. each. In this hall, "ever- 
lasting brilliant," we waited patiently until business subsided, 



Digitized by 



Google 




o 



3 

o 



a 

3 
O 
u 

o 



E 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



THE BRINE WELLS 27 

and then had our chairs (as it was impossible to spread our 
beds in such a place) put close to the street front, as far distant 
from the officers' pavilion as possible, and in these we slept a 
few hours. By taking down two of the doors and laying them 
across the threshold, upon which we placed two of our coolies 
to sleep as guards — the innkeeper, afraid of thieves, insisted on • 
this precaution — we managed to secure both privacy and a ' 
breath of fresh air, and to solace ourselves with a glimpse of 
the stars in the narrow slit of sky visible between the nearly 1 
meeting eaves of our own and the houses opposite. Made 95 H ' 
(28 \ miles) — a long day ! 

July 14, 1892. — At daylight, while our frugal breakfast was 
preparing, went for a stroll, although worn out by our long 
journey of the day before, followed by an almost sleepless 
night, our " boy," who had proudly installed himself in our 
rejected best room, now wore a rueful face as he exhibited his 
arms swollen with bug bites, and declared he had not slept a 
wink. The Szechuan people, though obtrusively inquisitive, 
like most Chinese, are respectful to everybody attended by a 
sedan chair, which is a necessary voucher of respectability for 
a " Western " (a term which includes Americans more certainly 
than does the word " European ") in these parts. Especially is 
this voucher needed by the " Western " travelling in European 
clothes, as we are doing, the tight fit and uncouth cut of which \ 
announce to Chinese eyes a lamentable poverty which had had 
to make shift with scanty material and homely workmanship.* 
Both banks of the river here are lined with the towers of oil 
wells as well as the heights above. We walked into one 
establishment not a iiundred yards from our inn and found the 
pump, or, to speak more accurately, the bamboo dipper not 
working. The well, which is about five inches in diameter, and 
capped with a stone ring, was plugged with wood, out of which 
proceeded a small bamboo tube which carried the gas to the 

* Richthofen says the people here have the reputation of being very rode. 
He unwisely travelled without a sedan. We found the phrase " fang-er " (give 
way) always effectual. 



Digitized by 



Google 



28 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

kitchen in the rear. The approach to these back premises was 

again up steps cut in the solid rock. We found the early rice 

cooking in the usual wide iron boiler {kwo) } underneath which 

a gas-jet was burning with a bluish flame, the mouthpiece or 

> burner being simply a handful of clay roughly daubed around 

! the extremity of the bamboo tube. The brine at this well only 

1 suffices for about three hours " pumping " in the twenty-four 

hours. 

A small affluent here falls into the river (right bank), crossed 
near its mouth by a handsome stone bridge, over which the 
41 western road," upon which we continue our journey, passes. 
On either side of the ravine are more fire-wells, the towers 
standing up from among clusters of houses interspersed with 
bamboo groves and trees. We set up our camera on a flat- 
topped rock, and took a general view of the ravine, keeping off 
the crowd from getting in front of the field with no little 
difficulty, and then we turned into one of the larger establish- 
ments on our left, surrounded by a lofty stone wall, shut the 
doors on the crowd, and posted two of our coolies on guard ; 
I then asked for the Chang-kwei-tih, or manager, who seemed 
* overcome with the sudden irruption into his domain of a foreign 
man and woman and an uncanny machine on three legs. This 
instrument, for ought he could tell, might have come to rob the 
place of its pao-pei (treasures), to effect which barbarians, it is 
well known, are provided with special machines, and so he gave 
but a reluctant consent to our visit. The bamboo dipper, or 
pump, a tube of bamboo about thirty feet long and three inches in 
diameter, was just coming to the surface as we approached the 
well ; when the bottom of the tube is raised clear above the 
surface, the attendant forces up the valve with a heavy, hook- 
shaped piece of iron, and the brine gushes out into a wooden 
tub, in the bottom of which is inserted a bamboo tube, which 
conveys the brine to the evaporating vats situated on a lower 
level* This tube held about 300 lbs. weight of brine, and 
occupied a quarter of an hour in raising. The line is formed 
of strips of split bamboo, about half an inch wide, pieced 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 29 

together by bamboo lashings, and is renewed every ten days. 
The rope is carried over the pulley at the top of the tower and ' 
led past another pulley on the ground to a covered shed, in 
which is a rough wooden apparatus, like a spinning-wheel 
placed horizontally, with eight or more arms,* each about 10 
feet radius. Three buffaloes were hitched to this huge wheel,-' 
each attended by a driver, who follows them round the fifty 
turns required to raise the dipper with its brine, the depth of 
this well being about 3000 English feet. 

After taking a couple of photos here we went down to our 
" chairs," which were waiting on the bridge, and had some 
difficulty in getting our coolies to start after their broken night's 
rest, but promising them a short day of 45 /* (13 \ miles) we at last 
persuaded them to move. It was now past eight and the sun 
was powerful, so we let ourselves be carried up the ravine 
to a large boiling establishment to which we had been recom- 
mended. Here, in a long shed, were two rows, each of twenty- 
four pans of boiling brine, each pan heated by a single gas jet 
in the same way as in the small establishment we had visited 
at dawn. The manager, who was very polite in showing us 
everything, informed me that each pan produced 100 catties of 
salt daily, thus making the daily output at this one place three 
tons. When first boiled the salt is taken out as a hard black 
cake ; it is then dissolved again and washed with clean water, 
re-crystallised, and eventually marketed in square bamboo mat- 
bags in the shape of coarse white crystals, each of these bags 
weighing about 60 lbs. A row of gaslights dependent from the 
roof illuminated the shed, which had the dirty untidy appear- 
ance of all Chinese habitations, the floor being a succession of 
hillocks which no attempt was made to level until they render 
the ways absolutely impassable. The sulphurous odours, com- 
bined with those of the cesspools and numerous workmen, 
made us glad to get out again into the hot sunshine. From 
here we ascended to the summit of the limestone plateau by a 
staircase 10 feet wide, the finest road we had yet traversed, 
which has been built to accommodate the heavy traffic of 



Digitized by 



Google 



30 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the coolies and pack animals which goes on between the two 
salt centres of Shih Nung Kai and Kung Ching, a distance of 
three miles. The Tsz Liu Ching (self-flowing wells) salt 
country is about 9 miles across, there being some twenty- 
four fire-wells and several hundred brine wells in this area. 
The country is all grass, a coarse description which suits the 
water-buffalo. We met many women (small-footed) and boys 
carrying loads of grass, some from places 50 K(i$ miles) dis- 
tant, as also leaves, mostly of the bean, for the pigs, and there 
seems, judging from the number of carcasses hanging on the 
butchers' stalls which lined the streets of the crowded villages 
we passed through, a heavy consumption of pork by the work- 
men employed in this industry. From the top of the ridge, 
which we found to be 500 feet above the river, we beheld the 
busy town of Kung Ching, covering the slope of another lime- 
stone ridge which lay in our path, and which was separated 
from us by a steep ravine, at the bottom of which flowed a 
rapid stream, tumbling over loose boulders and crossed by a 
wide three-arched bridge. 

The day being very oppressive we remained in our chairs, 
and were carried down the stone path between the dingy grass 
knoUs and up through the town on the other side. Seeing a 
cool spring we ventured to stop and take a drink of cold water, 
the want of which we had felt to be one of our greatest depri- 
vations on the journey thus far, the eternal hot water, called tea 
— which was instantly supplied wherever we stopped — though, 
doubtless, more wholesome and well adapted to the climate, 
being very insipid. The streets of Kung Ching were extraor- 
dinarily narrow, steep and angular, and none but Chinese chair 
coolies would ever have carried us through them. At many 
turns the chairs were only got round the corners with the 
greatest difficulty. The whole of the hills and valleys thus 
traversed are covered with the rough wooden towers of the 
brine wells, 50 to 100 feet in height, the more lofty ones being 
stayed from their summits by ropes of bamboo. These, and 
the innumerable brine and gas ducts, give the country the 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 31 

appearance of being covered in places with colossal spider- , 
webs. There is a vast interchange of brine and gas going on 
according to the wants of the various factories, and to meet 
this every kind of rough appliance known to the Chinese is 
employed. Storage vats of brine and gas are set down any- I 
where most convenient, in the middle of a field or in the already ' 
too-crowded streets of a town, while the communicating con-. » 
duits pass across the fields or along the streets, still farther 
blocking these up with their trestles, like elevated railways in 
New York on a small scale. Iron is scarce and dear while 
bamboo is cheap, and scarcely any of the former material is in 
use except for the crowbars or drivers with which new wells 
are being bored, and for nails ; even these latter are replaced 
by bamboo lashing wherever practicable. \ 

In order to convey the brine across the ridge that intervenes 
between the two depots of Kung Ching and Shih Nung Kai an 
incredible amount of manual labour is employed, such hard 
drudgery as none but Chinese could endure. In addition to 
the innumerable brine towers, we noticed a series of more 
substantial erections, the use of which we could not at first 
determine; there were also square towers, squat-shaped and 
roofed in with substantial thatch and wide eaves. A nearer 
examination proved them to be the receptacles of chain pumps, 
being worked treadmill-fashion by two, three, or four naked 
coolies perched under the roof, fanning themselves with one 
hand while they steadied themselves, leaning against a hori- 
zontal bar, with the other, their naked feet working the toilsome 
but clever machinery by which the Chinese ages ago solved 
the problem of making water run up hill. At the foot of each 
tower was a reservoir cut in the rock, which was supplied with 
brine by a bamboo conduit led from the summit of a similar 
pumping-tower below. The slope of the hill here was a gentle 
one, and the towers, each one of which raised brine about 
12 feet, stood about 50 yards apart; having once reached 
the top of the hill the brine descends the other side by 
gravity. 



Digitized by 



Google 



32 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

And all this hard labour of man and kine is repaid by a 
manufactured article which is delivered in its finished state for 
1 5 cash a catty, £d. per lb. Truly, when the Chinese do intro- 
duce Western knowledge and machinery into their arts, the 
control of the industrial world will be in their hands. 

They occupy a country as vast, as fertile, and as prolific in 
resources as the United States of America, while they are 
undoubtedly the hardest and most patient workers on the earth, 
and consume in a month for all their wants little more than an 
English or American artisan spends in a single day. Nor are 
they devoid of intelligence ; all these poor coolies gave sensible 
answers to any questions we put to them, and were thoroughly 
well informed in their own sphere. The shipyards of 
Hong-kong and Shanghai show of what excellent work Chinese 
are capable under European guidance, and it will not be long 
before the conservative upper class sees the need of Western 
learning and will allow the country to profit by it To-day, 
however, every traveller is struck by the superiority in energy 
and intelligence which the lower and middle classes display 
when compared with their ignorant and conceited superiors, 
the gentry so-called, who are the real enemies of that progress 
and prosperity which would raise China to a front rank among 
the nations of the earth. The nineteenth century has seen our 
own " Tory," once synonymous with the " stupid " party, con- 
verted to the doctrine of progress : may we not unnaturally 
look for a like metamorphosis in the coming twentieth century 
here in China ? No caste traditions hamper the people as in 
India ; they have the distinguished merit of being free from the 
religious prejudices that so long arrested progress in Europe, 
and they have enjoyed for centuries the most practically demo- 
cratic government that, up to the date of the French revolution, 
the world had ever seen. My suggestion to the managers of 
the works we went over, that they should use the gas to drive 
a steam-engine, was made a decade too soon ; not that they 
did not appear thoroughly to appreciate its advantages, judging 
by their intelligent inquiries as to the cost, efficiency, &c, but, 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE BRINE WELLS 33 

with the Chinaman's timid nature, they feared being involved 
in indirect difficulties, the chief of which they indicated, but 
never clearly expressed, as being the opposition of the shSnshih 
(lit. the sash-wearers), or " gentry." 

On the summit above Kung Ching we made an unceremonious 
entry into a walled-in establishment, where a new well was in 
process of boring. We asked for the Chang kwei tih f who 
asked us to sit down politely enough, but, upon my beginning 
to ply him with questions, he fled into another room. We sat 
down opposite the dipper, which, upon being hauled to the 
surface, discharged two bucketsful of liquid red mud, the result 
of the previous hammering of the red sandstone rock by the 
200 lb. heavy crowbar which was lying alongside. This boring 
was now only some 300 feet deep ; the workmen told me they 
hoped to reach the brine in three years, but many borings have 
taken ten times that period before the pactolean fount was 
successfully tapped. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER III 

FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 

Impoverished Salt Wells— Raging Cholera— The great system of 
Sweating— Restaurant with High-road through it—" CrossRanges *'— 
Bare Utilitarianism— New Triumphal Arch— A Rainless District- 
Goddess of Mercy Precipice— Colossal Buddha's Head— Self-acting 
Irrigating Wheels— Subtle Pills— Opium Smoking— Wind-less Sze- 
chuan— Buddhist Shade T re es Military Commander of District- 
Horrors of Chinese Inns — Mountain Fortifications — Fi-kung again — 
No Stone used— Religious Feeling— Mi To Fo— Chinese Main Road 
— Handsome Bridges— Mantze Caves— At last the River Min. 

After leaving the self-flowing wells our road took us again 
through broken (one cannot call it undulating) country, highly 
cultivated with paddy and beans in the valleys, and maize and 
millet on the slopes. We passed several petty salt works, 
having an impoverished appearance, being probably on the 
extreme western edge of the subterranean brine basin of 
Tsz' Liu Ching, and comparatively unproductive. The towers 
were not over 30 feet, and the winding drums 12 feet instead 
of the usual size of 20 feet or 25 feet in diameter. None 
were working, though at one place we saw two pans full 
of brine being evaporated over a very smoky chimneyless 
coal fire. Probably these wells only flow an hour or two 
each day : we made inquiries, but had not time or inclina- 
tion for the prolonged cross-examination needful in China 
before the traveller may venture to record anything in his note- 
book as an actual fact. The heat was most oppressive; the 
close, misty, yet sunny wind-less heat of Szechuan ; we were all 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 35 

tired out by our miserable night at Changchiat'o, and anxious 
to get on to a resting-place. Indeed, but for the apparent 
impossibility of obtaining an anyway decent shelter to sleep in, 
we should certainly have spent another night at this, so far the 
most interesting spot in China we had yet visited, and investi- 
gated it more thoroughly. Another reason for not prolonging 
our stay was the fact that a bad epidemic of cholera was raging, 
indeed throughout all Szechuan, but with especial virulence in 
this crowded district. The wonder, indeed, is that with such 
surroundings and with the hot, still, damp air any of the popu- 
lation are found to survive the summer. We rested for . 
luncheon in a tumble-down but roomy restaurant situated at x 
the top of one of the ridges and, inter alia, ate a kind of rice ' 
blanc-mange, called Liangkao (cold pudding), of rice flour, 
which we found to be as refreshing as it is said to be whole- 
some. This and bean curd are additions to their four regular 
rice meals which the hardworking coolies much indulge in, and, 
ours certainly keep in capital condition. 

It is true that ours do not carry us half the distance. 
They sublet their work to that omnipresent and convenient 
being in China — and especially in foreign households — the 
ti-kung, or substitute. Our contract to convey us the 300 
miles from Chungking to Omi Shan was 4800 ca£h per man 
(fifteen shillings sterling). We had eight coolies for our two 
chairs, three for our boy's chair, and six porters for our bed- 
ding, photographic apparatus, plates, and foreign luxuries — 
seventeen in all. " Sweating " is developed to a high point in \ 
China. Thus of the 4800 cash we have to pay the " hong " for 
each coolie, only 3820 goes to that ill-used individual. It is 
true the hong " secures " them and the safety of our numerous 
possessions, and for this purpose sends along with the coolies 
a "fu fou" or headman — a most useful and necessary individual { 
we found him to be, and not above taking a hand (or rather 
shoulder) at a chair or load when one or other of our coolies 
knocked up and had no substitute to hand. For our coolies 
sublet their work again to local porters who are paid from 



Digitized by 



Google 



36 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

i£ to 4 cash per /*, according to the demand and season of the 
year (planting, harvest, &c.) This makes about \d. to \d, per 
mile English. A full day's journey is 90 It (27 miles), and a 
short day's 60 ff(i 8 miles). To-day, owing to the bad night's 
rest and delay at Tzs' Liu Ching, we stopped after covering half a 

\ " tsan " (stage), only 14 miles, and put up for the night at a 
very dirty but airy inn in the long busy street called Ch6n Chia 

' Chang, market-town of the Chto family. Here the thunder- 
storm, which seems to terminate each hot spell of four or five 
days in Szechuan, cooled the air and gave us an excellent 
night's rest. 

July 15, 1892. — At dawn started on foot through the long 
street of the village ; few people up ; passed spacious temples 
with colossal carved stone monsters guarding the central 
entrance under the stage, which usually occupies here the 
northern side of the big court-yard forming the pit, free to all 
when theatrical representations are given. Walked on 15 A' 
to Chin Li Kang, where we arrived at 7 A.M., and breakfasted 
together with our coolies in one of the usual extensive wayside 
restaurants, through the middle of which the covered-in road- 
way passes, offering shelter from rain and sun, and tempting 
the tired coolie to pause at one of the many tables and refresh 
himself for a few cash with rice congee, vermicelli soup, bean 
curd, tea and wine. We paid one cash for our square of rice- 
flour blanc-mange yesterday, including molasses sauce : 1 
copper cash = -fa penny sterling. The morning, which had 

, been cool and misty, was rapidly growing warm as we ascended 
a sandstone ridge, which the aneroid showed to be 500 feet 
above the altitude of our last night's resting-place (which I 
made 600 feet above Chungking, or about 1600 feet above the 
sea). The country, now we had left the interposing limestone 
plateau (or " cross range," as Blakiston has well named these 
successive limestone hills that traverse the great " red basin * 
of Szechuan, almost always in a N.N.E. and S.S.W. direction), 
resumed its former aspect of small terraced valleys, bordered 
by steep heights, often precipitous, the crops still paddy, beans, 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 37 

maize, and tall millet (this latter entirely shutting out the view 
when our path led through it), of all of which we were getting 
heartily tired. For, in the agricultural districts of China, no 
parks are, met with, no flower-gardens surround the low farm- 
houses. The poor crippled housewives have little inclination, 
even if they had the leisure, to make their homes neat and 1 
pleasing. Bare^utilitarianism reigns supreme, and we can see 
here the result that a general adoption of the allotment system, 
coupled with pressure of population, may be expected to produce 
in England. 

At the top of the rise^ ling, or "pass," as the Chinese term j 
these summits crossed By the roadway, we found a grand new • 
pai/ang, or triumphal arch, in course of erection. It was a 
comparatively lonely part of the road, but two new large 
houses stood on its left hand ; one turned out to be the office of 
works and temporary residence of the decorators employed on 
the arch, and the other a new charskih (cafi restaurant, or lit. 
tea and eating-house), and consequently clean, but kept by an ; 
extraordinarily dirty old woman. We enjoyed here our mid-day 
meal and rest, relays of our coolies fanning us the while. A ' 
new triumphal arch was something novel: this one was as 
large and as handsome as any I had ever seen, and the stone 
carvings were being richly coloured and profusely gilded. Its 
erection had been authorised by Imperial edict, a facsimile of \ 
which, in Chinese and Manchu, had been cut into one of the \ 
stone panels of the arch, the ground being gold and the letters \ 
blue, in honour of one Liu, who had contributed largely to the 
Yellow River fund at the time of the great inundation in the 
last decade. The arch had cost Tls. 8000 (£1600), which, : 
taking the relative value of money and price of skilled labour 
in the two countries, makes it equal to a work costing £8000 
in Europe. Nothing of the kind more elegant and elaborate 
can be conceived. Its site was admirable, commanding a view 
over a wide extent of rich, broken, and well-wooded country as 
far as the eye can reach. We learnt the curious fact that in 
this immediate neighbourhood they were badly off for water 



Digitized by 



Google 



38 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

no rain having fallen for a month, while all around the country 
is regularly watered by frequent thunderstorms and drenching 
showers. It was the only comparatively barren spot we had 
met with since entering the province 500 miles to the east. 
Curiously, there are other such inexplicable spots. A traveller 
mentions a place in Siberia, about 1000 miles to the north of 
this place, where, over a diameter of 30 miles or so, no snow 
falls, although deep snow lies all round — and, in consequence, 
the sleighs in winter have to be painfully dragged over the bare 
gravel, a day or two's journey. 

We passed another remarkable sandstone cliff standing up 
vertically 150 to 200 feet, called Kuan Yin Ngai, or "Goddess 
of Mercy " (the Buddhist analogue of the Virgin Mary) pre- 
cipice, its crest crowned with the substantial walls of the 
Tien Pao Chai ("Citadel of Heaven's Precious Ones "). Roofs 
of houses and fine trees could be distinguished behind its 
walls, so it appears to be inhabited. The country generally 
was almost identical in outline and productiveness with that 
immediately west of Chungking, traversed in the early part of, 
our journey. We were approaching the walls of Jung Hsien, 
the " Glorious City," when, on our left, we noticed a colossal 
head and shoulders of Buddha, cut off the side of a cliff about 
a mile off, which appeared to be over 300 feet in height. 
On the edge of the level-topped cliff, immediately over the 
head, a large temple building was just discernible, and not so 
large but that the colossus could have made an easy meal of it. 
The figure appeared to have been recently regilded, and shone 
gloriously in the western sun. Traversing in our chairs Jung 
Hsien, a not very important-looking city, though containing 
some good shops, we issued out of the west gate on to a fast- 
running stream about 50 yards wide, on the banks of which 
the self-acting irrigating wheels, common to this part of 
Szechuan, were at work. They are entirely made of bamboo 
and about 20 feet in diameter, and the circumference, in 
addition to the floats by which the stream causes the wheel 
to revolve, is covered with short dippers of hollow bamboo, 



Digitized by 



Google 




o 



S 

'a 
O 

o 

en 



2 

3 

o 
'C 

bo 
< 



U 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 39 

tied diagonally across it, so that upon reaching the summit 
in their revolution they discharge their contents into a trough, 
whence the water is conveyed to the paddy-fields on the bank 
above. 

A conspicuous feature, never absent from the main streets of 
the cities we traversed, was the number of banners stretched 
across the roadway in the business quarter, red with white 
balls, in each Chinese character, the whole legend being Kai 
yen ling tan, meaning " Subtle Pills for Stopping Smoke." The 
same are displayed in Chungking and all the towns in 
Szechuan; these pills are quack medicine, both native and 
foreign, the latter containing opium and engendering by their 
use a worse habit than the original one of smoking the drug. 
They are mostly sold by herb doctors at street stalls, and are a 
considerable source of profit to these, and still more so to 
the foreign importer, who, taking advantage of the liberal 
Customs' tariff which admits foreign medicines free, thus 
introduces into the country by a side-wind that heavily taxed 
and, to the Chinese, most pernicious drug, free of duty. 
Opium-smoking is so widespread in Western China, where 
the poppy grows most luxuriantly everywhere as a winter 
crop (succeeded invariably by a summer crop of maize, millet, 
or beans), and is as yet untaxed by the authorities, that it is 
estimated half the adult male population smoke, besides a con- 
siderable proportion of the women. The farmers, too, have 
every inducement to grow it, as they pay rent to their land- 
lords only on the summer crop (usually one-third), while of 
the opium, the most profitable of all, they retain the whole 
proceeds in their own hands. Wherever I stop and enter into 
conversation, 1 am invariably asked two questions: (1) "Are 
you selling books? 1 ' suggested by the remembrance of the 
Bible colporteurs, who seem to have been ubiquitous. 
(2) " Have you any cure for opium ? " When I answer, " No, w 
and that foreigners never smoke opium, they appear incredu- 
lous, and ask, " Why did you teach us to smoke it ? " And it 
is no use telling them that our predecessors, the Portuguese, 



Digitized by 



Google 



40 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

only supplied a want which they found already existing, and 
that the East India Company simply followed their example. 
At one of the villages where our coolies rested to-day I sat me 
down, as it turned out, on a bench at the door of one of the 
innumerable opium-shops. The manager, a good-looking young 
man, bare to the waist (as is, most sensibly, the whole population 
at this season), asked me to come in, which I did. He was 
engaged behind a counter filling little cups with a measure of 
( 6 fin (38 grains) prepared opium, which sells from 12 to 16 
r cash (about a halfpenny), and provides pabulum for six or 
seven pipes. After refusing a pipe myself, the youngster 
asked me to give him some "give-up-smoking" medicine. I 
could only give him advice, which was to stop smoking, which 
at his age — seventeen — should not be difficult, but in such 
surroundings he is bound to take to it all the same. 

We passed another ngai (precipice) with a solid stone wall 
encircling its summit, and then ascended to a yellow sandstone 
country where the soil was markedly less fertile, the rice back- 
ward, and the maize 3 feet instead of 6 feet. We rested on the 
top of the plateau, which my aneroid made to be 900 feet above 
Chungking, under a grove of about a dozen most magnificent 
hoangko (banyan, ficus infectorid) trees, while our " boy " (age 
40, with moustache and hair turning grey) went forward to 
arrange about our night's lodging and to lay the cloth for our 
supper. The view was very extensive and it was deliciously 
cool, the last three days 9 almost constant temperature of 95 ° by 
day and 86° by night having somewhat fatigued us both, but 
there was no wind, only the gentlest of breezes,* a peculiarity 
of Szechuan, as shown by the splendidly symmetrical growth 
of the thick-foliaged banyans which crown every summit; 
below are seats and a shrine (for it is deservedly a sacred 
tree) where the villagers congregate to cool themselves, 

* Pliny describing the land of the Seres speaks of the "lenissimis ventis " 
-which can hardly apply to anything but China proper, the road hither, 
through Central Asia, traversing countries of notoriously extreme climates. 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 41 

and some to spread their opium mats, after their day's work* 
Though unable to share Sir Edwin Arnold's ecstacies, I yet\ 
bless the Buddhists for having rendered sacred all the most 
picturesque sites, and for having preserved groves of shade trees 
round their temples from the axes of the utilitarian natives,, 
who are doing their best by utterly deforesting their mountains 
to aid the march of the Central Asian desert into the north- 
west, where already floods and drought are alternately depopu- 
lating the provinces which were once the home of the Chinese 
race and for many centuries the granary of the Empire. The 
view here was not unlike that across the "small" river at 
Chungking, with its highly cultivated valleys and broken sand- 
stone ridges, with innumerable groves and scattered villages — 
a rich peaceful scene with, however, a reminder of troubles in 
the frequent cities of refuge which now merely serve to add a 
touch of romance to the charming picture at our feet. Beyond, 
and bounding the western horizon, was another of the limestone 
11 cross ranges/' in a valley of which lay our immediate desti- 
nation, still some 10 miles distant. Scantily clad children were 
playing about, little club-footed girls even managing to climb 
the trees, in total disregard of us "Ocean Ogres/' who are 
such a terror to the women and children of the more easterly 
provinces. 

At half-past four o'clock we were off again, and in three 
hours' time had crossed the intervening basin and arived at the 
market-town of Tieh Chang Pu (iron-yard shop) picturesquely 
nestled in a steep-walled wooded valley through which coursed 
a rapid stream, soon to be still more swollen by the downpour 
in which, as seems usual here, the three days of extreme heat 
and closeness came to a pleasing, if only temporary, end. 
Here, for the first time, we had a room with a " practicable " 
window (they are usually fixtures, heavy lattice-work covered 
with opaque oiled paper) from which we had a look-out on to 
the hill side. Our elevation here was identical with that of our 
late halting-place. While just sitting down to the neatly laid 
table, which our boy religiously sets out much the same as at 



Digitized by 



Google 



42 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

home, with flowers when procurable, however poor the pro- 
vender and however filthy the room, a card was sent in bearing 
the name of the military commander of the district, and shortly 
followed by the "Great Man" himself, in full dress, who, 
though at first slightly abashed by the presence of a lady, was 
soon prevailed upon to sit down and talk. He had the impres- 
sion that I was myself in the Chinese military service, whence 
derived I know not, unless from my boy, who always tries to 
make us out to be grand people, and is particularly indignant at 
the depreciatory character of " English trader " which has been 
inserted in my this year's Consular pass. However, I told the 
official we wanted nothing, were quite comfortable where we 
were, and asked him to stay to supper, which he refused to do. 

< The magistrates see us safely through their respective juris- 
dictions by a convoy of two ragged (invariably opium-smokers) 

' tstri jen, or " runners from their yamSn" of most incredibly 
disreputable appearance, whom we found perfectly useless, and 
whom we seldom caught sight of until they turned up at the 

J end of their beat to receive a gratuity which amounted to about 
what we should have paid two useful coolies for the same dis- 
tance. In the night calm that followed the thunderstorm we 
found this, at first sight cheerful-looking room, no more 
pleasant than its predecessors, being built out over the 
pig-sty, and other places still more odoriferous, while biting 
insects were even more attentive then usual. 

July 16, 1892. — After a hot, comfortless night and a toilet by 
candle-light, started at half-past four, our path leading up a 
lovely glen. The escape into the sweet country air, coupled 

* with the impression from the omnipresent antitheticaJLcouplets, 
adorning with their gay colours the filthy shelters that 
disgrace the fair country, led to our here imitating Silas 
Wegg and dropping into poetry with the antithetical fit still 
on our brain. It was thus we sang as at early dawn 
we trudged up the lovely mountain side, fresh from the 
night rain : 



Digitized by 



Google 



PROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 43 

We've slept in many an inn before, 

Bnt never in an inn like this ; 
The insect life and odours rare 

Made fall "celestial" bliss. 

Oh I Chinese land with beauties rife ! 

A Heaven on earth to see, 
Could but all thy "celestial" life 

To Heaven transported be ! 

If one could only avoid the towns and carry a tent that 
would keep out rain and sunshine, nothing would be easier 
or more delightful than land travel in this charming region ; 
but then the difficulty would be to find a vacant spot 10 feet 
square upon which to pitch the tent, and I fear this difficulty 
would be found insuperable, as, except on some of the higher 
mountain sides, every inch of the land is cultivated, and even 
these are covered with a dense growth which it would take 
much labour to clear. The use of a tent would also in the 
populous parts be sure to bring one into unpleasant collision 
with the inhabitants, as was the experience of Mr. Pratt, the 
naturalist, who, on the grassy slopes of the high, sparsely 
populated mountains which fill the far western portion of the 
province, tried a tent as the only shelter procurable, when an 
unseasonable snowstorm caused the superstitious people to 
drive him out of the country. We ( ascended 800 feet to the 
top of a pass, where the aneroid showed 27.25, or about 
2000 feet above Chungking. The path continued along the 
edge of a thick wood, which covered the mountain top, until 
we turned to descend through a substantial gateway of red 
sandstone (the limestone is too much for the Chinese), by 
which we passed through a crenelated wall built to defend the 
pass and run up through the jungle to the crests of the moun- 
tains on either side These fortifications might be of use if 
the people possessed the leaders and the spirit to defend them, 
but " unfortunately, 91 says old Marco, " the Chinese Mantsze 
(as he calls them) have no spirit." At any rate, in what I 
have seen of Chinese warfare, fortifications were seldom 



Digitized by 



Google 



44 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

defended, and in the rare cases when they were defended gene- 
rally led to the eventual massacre of the defenders. We 
descended from this range, called Ta Shan Tsu Shan, or 
11 Bamboo Mountains," into a continuation of the broken red 
sandstone country that extends to the Min River and across it 
until it reaches its western boundary at the foot of the lofty 
cliffs of the sacred mountain of Omi. 

The air was cool, but close, as we again traversed fields of 
tall millet, maize, paddy (now in ear), alternating with groves 
of firs, tallow trees, and varnish trees on the higher ridges, 
water gushing forth on all sides, and often making our path 
the bed of a small torrent. There was a great crowd in 
the winding, seemingly never-ending, narrow village street, 
through which our chairs had to be squeezed, until suddenly 
they were set down; the chair coolies either couldn't or 
wouldn't understand our orders to proceed, and there was 
nothing to do but to wait patiently until rescued by some of 
our men who had gone on to find a place for our lunch, and 
who must have been close by and expecting us. The benefit 
of the sweating system I have described above hardly extends 
to the employer and occupant of the chair, who is looked upon 

! as a piece of baggage to be shunted and got rid of as best may 
be. In the present case there was some dispute as to the 

• distance we were to be carried for the pittance which 
these miserable objects, who formed the lowest ring of the 
11 sweated " — and to whose feeble powers our safety had been, 
willy-nilly, entrusted — had bargained for. Unfortunately, a 
chair journey at this season is the only safe mode of travel to 
the sun-fearing Western. We were ultimately rescued, and 
were glad to get away, after a shorter rest than usual, from 

' this dirty hamlet into a country delightfully cut up into combes 
and glens till we reached the hamlet of San Chio (Three 
Bridges), beyond which, on the top of a rise, we rested in a 
large, roomy, and exceedingly dirty and dilapidated restaurant, 
built astride the roadway (which passes under its roof a 
distance of 50 yards or so), and shut off at each end with 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 45 

beavy gates made of stout, round, vertical rails set in a solid frame 
reaching to the low roof; the interior was partitioned off by 
like means, and with its gloom and dirt one might have fancied 
oneself in a Chinese gaol, but that the coolies were seated at 
tables sipping their tea. Shortly before this we passed the 
only building with stone walls we had seen. That the Chinese 
do not use stone for their buildings in a country where stone 
is so easily accessible, and where their ancestors appear to 
have lived entirely in rock chambers, which are found scattered 
throughout the innumerable cliffs of the sandstone basin of 
Szechuan, can, I think, only be attributed to the difficulty of 
working the limestone and to the porosity of the sandstone in 
a climate reeking with moisture all the year round This 
building was partly excavated out of the rock ; the altars, \ 
Buddhas, and Lohan (die eighteen disciples) being all carved * 
in situ, with a natural rock overhead. In fact, there is scarcely 
one of the myriad sandstone precipices which break up the 
Szechuan landscape, from whatever point viewed, but is 
adorned with a Buddha or an inscription carved. Whether, 
owing to the fact of its having been the province through which 
the early Buddhist missionaries made their way into China, 
crossing Thibet on their road from India, or whether it is due 
to the awe inspired by the grand precipitous outlines of the 
mountains, or to the ease with which the soft sandstone forma- 
tion lends itself to sculpture, or to all these causes combined, 
certain it is that no portion of our globe exhibits more tangible 
evidence of devout religious feeling than does this Chinese 
province of Szechuan. It is to Buddhism what Bavaria is to 
Catholicism, a land where religious influences have yielded 
outward expression at every turn, and where the hardy peasant 
and the chaffering shopkeeper alike offer daily sacrifice of 
incense and devote no small share of their slender resources to 
what, according to our personal ethical standard, we class as 
devout worship of heaven or grovelling propitiation of unseen 
beings potent alike for good and evil. 
Rain fell heavily to-day, and waterfalls came down on all 



Digitized by 



Google 



46 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

sides from the mist-encircled heights and descended in noisy 
cadence from step to step of the terraced paddy-fields, through 
*ftfiich~the narrow-paved path wound. As if the rock carvings 
on the valley sides were not enough, low square stone pillars 
were set up here and there like milestones, surmounted by a 
carved "monster" head with the four characters O Mi To Fo 
engraved below — the Chinese sounds for Omita Buddha. 
Many women sat at their street doors spinning cotton with 
distaffs. In the afternoon we again ascended the walls of the 
valley basin, and were carried along a narrow footpath by the 
edge of a precipice, the view from the window of the comfort- 
able sedan-chair being the Chinese equivalent to that from a 
pullman-car on the Canadian Pacific — a .sense of luxury 
seasoned by a spice of danger. At length we brought a long 
and interesting day to a close by our entry at dusk (7 p.m) into 
the crowded market-town of San Chiang Ch€n (Three Rivers). 
Although it was now dusk, yet the long-winding narrow street 
was almost impassable, and being, as in all these market-towns, 
entirely covered in with a plank roof was pitch dark, but for 
the rare lanterns with which these thrifty people are as 
economical as with anything else. Imagine a Lowther Arcade 
a mile long, through which passes the main road uniting two 
provincial cities, the whole traffic of the country confined to it 
— beasts of burden, biped and quadruped, water-carriers, 
manure-carriers, ponies, and sedan-chairs; and add to this — 
market-day, and the narrow pathway made still narrower by 
the wares out between the open shops and the road. Bear in 
mind that this road is never cleaned, and that the gutters reek 
with a black slime of garbage, festering under a July tempera- 
ture in the 29th parallel The shouting and execrations ex- 
changed as our coolies forced their way through to the inn 
added to the annoyance, and we were thankful when at last we 
were set down in the filthy court-yard of " Quiet Abundance. * 
Here we procured a room with no opening but the door, and spent 
a dismal night waiting for the dawn — Chinese all wide awake, 
talking, eating, drinking, and shouting until long past midnight. 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 47 

July 17. — Dressed by candle-light, and started off on foot 
ahead of our bearers as soon as the first glimpse of dawn 
enabled us to pick our way through the nude recumbent forms 
of the inhabitants stretched in the roadway. Got out into a 
picturesque country, with bright red soil contrasting admirably ' 
with the deep green of the July foliage, and in the cool morning 
air soon forgot our woes of the previous night. Breakfasted at 
Ma Ta Chie after crossing the stream, whose course we were 
following down to the valley of the Min, which we are now 
approaching on a handsome three-arched bridge adorned with 
an elegantly carved stone parapet such as all the old bridges 
hereabouts appear to have been originally built with. Few 
parapets are now seen, however ; these are the first portions of 
the bridge to decay, and appear never to be renewed nowa- 
days; then an arch falls in and is replaced by a couple of 
young fir-stems lashed together — to which, however, heavily 
laden porters, club-footed women, and even ponies seem to 
make no objection. A curious thing about the bridges here- 
abouts, the roadway of which is mostly composed of large 
monoliths stretching from pier to pier, is that the stone slabs 
are underlaid with fir-poles. We passed a picturesquely situated 
temple, outside of which a feast was in progress to celebrate a 
subscription of 100 cash apiece (4^.) contributed towards the 
repair of the building. Meat (*.*., pork) was being eaten, a 
curious instance of the neglect of dogma that pervades this 
practical people as, of course, the Buddhists are vegetarians, a 
rule strictly observed by the bonzes, but absolutely neglected by 
the laity, except on special occasions when fasting is conjoined 
with prayer. 

Continuing on through the paddy-fields which filled the 
narrow valley, and following down the red-coloured swollen 
burn to near its outfall, the path led under the square port-hole- 
like entrances of some easily accessible Mantze caves. (Mantze 
barbarian here meaning " the savages." ) As is well known, 
the precipitous red sandstone region of Szechuan, extending 
(along the Yangtze basin) from Kuei Chou Fu in the East to 



Digitized by 



Google 



48 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

[ Ping Shan in the West, is honeycombed with these homes of 
its ancient inhabitants — " Mantze," as the modem Chinese calls 
them, a term now employed in this province in speaking of 
Thibetans and barbarians generally. Who these Mantze were, 
and when they were driven out, traditions state not Probably 
they were akin to the Menia and other tribes now inhabiting the 
high mountainous country on the north-west border, and were 
driven gradually westward as their kinsmen the Thibetans are 

- at this day being slowly forced westward by the pertinacity of 
the effeminate Chinaman. At any rate, there can be no doubt 
that these aborigines, whoever they were, hacLattained to co n* 
siderable civilisation, and if one wonders how they can have 
selected such damp, dark habitations when the vast forests, 
with which the country was then covered, afforded them an 
inexhaustible supply of fine timber, the best explanation pro- 
bably is — the defence from beasts of prey which were formerly 
extremely numerous, and of which the Chinese of to-day even 
appear to possess an abnormal dread. 

That the ancient Mantze should have lived and apparently 
flourished in such abodes is not more remarkable than that any 
human being should be able to remain alive and propagate his 
species in the huts and midden heaps of a modern Chinese city 
like Chungking. And these Mantze, to judge by the carvings 
on the doorways and the high finish attending their rock exca- 

! vations, must have reached a fair state of civilisation. One of 
the cave houses we now explored with the aid of wax vestas 
was two-storied, and went back ioo feet with ample head- 
room everywhere. One doorway we measured was 3 feet high 
by 2 feet 6 inches wide ; others were somewhat larger. This 
may be called the outer doorway or porch; then come door 
jambs a foot deep, and then the inner door proper about 
6 inches smaller all round. The inner doorway has grooves in 
which it is plain that thick wood planks were slipped down on 
edge, one upon the other, until the doorway was thus barred, 
all except a few inches at the top, which formed the open slot 
through which the planks were thus let into their grooves from 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM TSZ' LUI CHING TO KIATING FU 49 

the inside. So the Mantze must have worked in wood and cut 
down timber. The caves are cut out in a series of rectangular 
rooms, with low recesses for beds, and small ones higher up for 
household utensils. One such room had a small circular 
opening in the centre of its floor just large enough to drop 
through, and leading to a vaulted chamber, possibly used as a 
granary, for which it would be suitable from its comparative 
dryness. A careful exploration with the spade and hatchet 
would, doubtless, reveal something more as to the habits of the 
Mantze, though it might not be easy to distinguish between 
their remains and those of the beggars and bad characters who 
have since dwelt in them, and who still occupy the caves more 
easily accessible. Thus we found the exploration far from 
pleasant, but we thought ourselves, at one time, rewarded for 
our pains in discovering, in a distant corner, a heap of bones, 
and umong them a human skull. This we brought out in triumph 
to the daylight, thinking we had now proof positive as to the fact 
whether the ancient Mantze were allied to the brachycephalic 
Mongol or to the dolichocephalic Thibetan. By the time, how- 
ever, that our matches had given out, and we had emerged into 
the narrow path on the cliff side, the invisible crowd that 
haunts the apparently wildest and remotest solitudes in China 
had become visible and filled up the road below, all agog to 
know what tricks we were up to. Assuming a reproachful tone 
in view of the existence of unburied human remains, we asked 
whose the skull might be, when the small boys, who seem to 
monopolise the intelligence of the country, as far as a Western 
traveller is concerned, told us it was that of a beggar. We set 
it down tenderly on the threshold and passed on, sadder if not 
wiser men. 

The glen narrowed at its mouth to little more than the width 
of the stream, which was there crossed by one of the pic- 
turesque covered Szechuan bridges, with a curly-roofed likin ' 
station and temple, one on either side, connecting it with the ' 
red cliffs. These, green-topped and pagoda crowned, formed > 
the portals of the valley which here debouched into that of the / 
* * D 



Digitized by 



Google 



5 o MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

fast-flowing Min river now at our feet A fine stone jetty led 
down into the water, and nothing but the river separated us 
from the long-looked for city of Kiating, the crenelated walls 

' of which, laved by the ruby waves, now lay before glisten- 
ing in the evening sunshine. Beyond lay Mount Omi, our 

\ destination, wrapped in the clouds which enveloped the 
western horizon. Our tedious chair-journey was drawing to 
an end, and we took our seats in the ferry-boat with no little 
elation that the ten days' overland trip, to which we had on 
setting out looked forward with some misgivings, was now 
happily accomplished. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER IV 

AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 

Tbb best Inn's best Room— Three Rivers of Klating— All in Flood- 
Colossal Buddha— First View of Omi— Torrential Rain— Crosses on 
the Roadway— Great Buddha Temples— Chinese Rubbings— Em- 
broideries — Missions— China Inland and Roman Catholic — Hotel 
Bill— Suchi— Pilgrims— Silk, and White Wax— City of Omi— Huge 
Bell — Bronze Pagoda— Limestone Ravine— Iron Suspension Bridge- 
Pair of Flying Bridges— Butterfly Collectors— Wan Nien Sze — 
Paying Coolies— Lohan and Hoangko Trees— Bronze Pusien on 
Elephant— Most Ancient Chinese Building— Pilgrims' Dress— Great 
Guest-room— Dining with a Chief Priest— Vegetarian Banquet — 
Barefaced Begging — Danger from Tigers. 

July 1 8. — Torrential rain. Last night's fine sunset turned out 
to be but a momentary break in the wet weather which set < 
in last week, which, while it has cooled the air, has stopped 
our further progress. We put up last night at the best inn in 
one of the best-looking towns we have yet seen. It is kept by 
a " graduate/' and is patronised by officials accordingly. It is 
gorgeous in gilding and red paint, and to the high guest-room, 
allotted to our humble selves, we ascended from the street 
through a succession of court-yards with the usual fish-ponds, 
flower-vases, and dirt. For, truth to tell, fine as is the accom- 
modation at first sight, the floor has the usual accumulation of 
the mud of ages, covering the original concrete with hard, 
slippery undulations of compressed filth, which the continuous 
rain keeps moistened as the men come and go across the yard 
to our quarters. Woe betide you if, in dressing, you drop a 
sock upon the floor, or still worse, your pocket-handkerchief or 



Digitized by 



Google 



52 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

towel ; neither can be used again until thoroughly washed with 
soap and water. The smells, too, were of the usual nature, 
and when, in the morning, we were informed that the " Ya " 
(which our road to Omi crosses) was in flood and impassable, 
and that we must wait for the water to fall, our depression was 
as great as had been our elation the night before. 

Kiating Fu — i.e., the prefectural city of Kiating — stands at the 
junction of two large rivers, as does nearly every city of note 
on the Yangtze and the Min, all the way from* Hankow to 
Chfing Tu, a distance of 1500 miles. The Min is regarded by 
the Chinese as the main stream of the Great River, owing to 
its leading from Cheng Tu, the provincial capital, and to its 
flowing through a more productive country, and so being more 
useful to traffic than is the larger body of water coming from 
the south-west, into which the Min discharges at Suifu, and 
which we still call the Yangtze. The river which unites with 
the Min to form the peninsula on which Kiating stands is the 
Ya, a stream of considerable volume, which has its sources in the 
glaciers of Chinese Thibet. The Ya washes the southern and the 
Min the eastern walls of the city, the site of which rises to the 
north-west, where its walls enclose a good deal of hilly ground. 
The streets are wide and clean (for China), and the town made 
a pleasant impression upon us, although the " hoodlums " were 
nearly as aggressive as in Chungking, and delighted in running 
after A.'s chair (a covered bamboo sedan from South China) 
and shouting after her Kan yang po tse iso lung tse — *>., 
" Look at the foreign woman in a cage. 11 A break in the rain 
enabled us to walk on the walls in the afternoon and admire the 
vast waters that were imprisoning us, now. at the height of. the 
summer flood — on one side, the roseate waters of the Min 
running four to five knots ; on the other, the orange-coloured 
Ya running fully eight or nine knots. The water was one-third 
up the wall, and the gates in the lower part of the town 
opened direct on to the flood, the water-coolies filling their 
buckets without passing the gateways. It was a grand sight 
to stand at the angle of the wall where the two rivers met, 



Digitized by 



Google 




o 
U 

'a, 

< 



Digitized by 



Google 



» • • •* 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 53 

and formed a dangerous rapid, known as the Ta Fo, or " Green 

Buddha" rapid, which sets direct on to the opposite shore, 

immediately below the break in the cliffs through which we had 

emerged the day previous, when our ferry-boat landed us 

safely at a practicable gate above the rapid, after hauling 

up stream by the aid of a bamboo hawser, lying in the bed of 

the river immediately under the cliff. So strongly does the 

current set on to this cliff that it is asserted that part of 

the river disappears under it. Descending boats manage 

to pass without accident only by rowing with might and 

main against the set of the current which would otherwise 

dash them with fatal force against the rocks. But the last 

defence is a colossal Buddha, some 200 feet in height, carved 

out of the cliff side, who sits calmly with his feet in the 

water, and his hands on his knees — a grove of shrubs for his 

hair and long pendent grasses forming his eyebrows. This 

meritorious work is said to have been carried out by a pious 

monk of the Tang period, who made it his life's labour, living 

in a cave, which is still shown, close by. The red sandstone 

is soft and easily sculptured, and no doubt the holy man found 

many willing helpers. A square thirteen-storied pagoda of 

Indian type and extensive temples almost entirely hidden in 

luxuriant sub-tropical foliage, adorn the surrounding heights. 

Thence we retraced our steps and walked inland along the wall 

to where it rises up the hill to a height of 200 or 300 feet above 

the river level, and commands an extensive prospect over the 

city and the broken plain beyond. Vegetable gardens, with 

not a few fine trees interspersed, fill this angle of the wall, and 

the country outside is unusually wooded with a great variety 

of trees and many fine bamboo copses, which appear to . 

flourish to perfection in the red ochreous soil. We stood 

here undisturbed, away from the inhabited portion of the city, 

and, looking down from the ramparts, gazed westwards, hoping 

to catch a glimpse of our long-looked-for goal — the sacred 

mountain said to stand out from the plain in a gigantic 

precipice a mile in height — but now mysteriously veiled in. 



Digitized by 



Google 



54 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

heavy banks of cloud. In the foreground stretched a wide 
expanse of water, broken by long wooded Islands — the flooded 
valleys of the Ya and Tung rivers, which unite their waters 
a mile or more above the city. Not a boat was to be seen, 
nor were any villages discernible ; it looked more like the grand 
solitude and wild features of some Canadian landscape than a 
view in populous China. Suddenly the clouds broke, the 
setting sun shone forth, and there, about thirty miles distant, 
rose up the dark range of the western mountains, with Omi's 
peak, as Baber describes it, pointing a thumb-nail to the sky. 
Darkness quickly set in, and with it the rain returned, in which 
we walked back to our hotel with small hope of being able to 
make a start on the morrow. We were, however, most 
anxious to get away, and spent the evening packing, so as to 
be ready to make a start at daylight should it be possible. 

July 19. — Torrential rains in the night, and the watg:. came 
through freely, drenching poor A. to the skin. She, trying 
to escape in the dark to our sitting-room, which, though 
entirely open on one side, appeared to have a sounder roof, 
had her shoes pulled off in the sticky mud of the floor, and we 
got into a nice mess generally. As soon as it was light I 
cleaned off, in a natural shower-bath, taking advantage of a 
waterfall from an angle of the roof in one corner of the court- 
yard, while A., with some difficulty, procured a hot tub and 
the needful privacy in which to make use of it. An early 
breakfast of hot coffee and Swiss milk reconciled us once more 
to existence as we made up our minds to another day's wait 
and set to work to write up our diaries, with our feet in the 
mud and the rain splashing upon us in fine spray from the 
court-yard pavement. It cleared up at noon, and we ferried 
across the Min to examine the Ta-fo-sze, or " Temples of the 
Great Buddha." We set foot ashore at the landing whence we 
had originally crossed the river, and ascended by a fine, broad, 
easy pathway, cut in wide steps out of the native rocks, and 
which wound round the face of the rock and in rear of the 
Great Buddha's head. The gamins had amused themselves 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 55 

by painting huge red crosses on the pathway, upon which they 
imagined we should not dare to walk ; we were, however, far 
more seriously incommoded by the green mould which over- 
spread the stone staircase, rendering walking slippery and 
dangerous. The temples are chiefly notable for the many 
i^criptiona^pn tablets of slate, engraved from the pen of 
distinguished visitors. We bought from the priest a collection 
of some thirty remarkably well-executed rubbings of these 
interesting antiquities for subsequent mounting as kakemonos. 
Some had boldly drawn landscapes and flowering shrubs, 
intermingled with the elegant Chinese characters written in 
various styles, which are much appreciated by native con- 
noisseurs; the meaning recondite — praise of the scenery, 
exhortations to virtue and consequent peace of mind, with 
appropriate quotations from the classics. We paid 2 dollars 
for the bundle — one of the most interesting souvenirs of our 
trip. There were verses by the celebrated Sung dynasty poet, 
Su Tung-po, and odes by two tsai hiang (Prime Ministers), also 
of the Sung period. 

The great Buddha himself was, as might have been expected, 
much worn after sitting so many years in this very damp 
climate with no shelter but the trees on his head, yet the 
features were just distinguishable. The foliage all round was 
so thick that we were unable to find a point of view for a 
photograph, and one taken from the walls of the city opposite 
was unsatisfactory owing to the half-mile of water intervening. 
We returned to our inn in the rain, which had recommenced, 
and boiled our thermometer again ; the average readings so far 
made Kiating 990 feet above the sea, a rise of 450 feet in 
the 1300 It, say 400 miles, which this city is distant by water 
from Chungking. 

July 20. — Rain ! Rain ! Sent out scouts to see if the ferry 
over the Ya, which we have to cross 10 miles higher up, was 
working. Report came back — whether true or not, difficult 
to say — No ; but in no case could we have travelled in such a 
downpour as this. Fortunately it is comparatively cool here 



Digitized by 



Google 



56 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

in rainy weather and many of the evil smells in the inn have 
been washed away. Kiating is the centre of a considerable 
silk production, that and white wax being the two great speci- 
alities of the prefecture, and we passed some part of the day 
inspecting embroideries, some of which we purchased at very 
reasonable prices. However rude and contemptuous is the 
behaviour of the Chinese generally to the barbarian, they are 
civil enough when it comes to a question of earning dollars 
from him, and, indeed, this is usually the traveller's only 
means of conciliating their goodwill. Hence it is a misfortune 
for missionaries, who are the sole representatives of Europe in 
these distant regions, to be so poorly paid that they have to 
haggle over every cash like a native, and thus forfeit the only 
title to respect which the foreigner possesses in the eyes of this 
sordid and supercilious people. 

Kiating city contains about 60,000 inhabitants and boasts 
two missions— one old-established Roman Catholic Mission and 
one China Inland Mission, established four years ago. Three 
zealous missionaries reside at the last, and a dispensary is 
attached to the preaching-hall ; they have quietly lived down 
opposition and are not molested by the populace, and, to their 
credit be it said, have not yet effected a single baptism. 
Whatever one's opinions as to the need of the Chinese for 
Western missionaries generally, or as to the right of these 
latter to establish themselves all over the country as they are 
doing, one cannot but admire the self-sacrificing conduct of 
these latter apostles, nor doubt that their exemplary conduct 
must tell in time upon the native estimate of the foreigner's 
character. 

I called at the Roman Catholic Mission, a fairly spacious, 
but unpretending range of Chinese buildings outside the north 
gate, where I saw the Father, who told me that he had been 
here twenty-eight years. Speaking of opium-smoking, he gave 
it as his opinion that, whereas thirty years ago only two or three 
per cent, of the adult male population smoked, now smokers 
might be estimated at a fourth of the whole. Like all other 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 57 

missionaries, he looked on the Chinese as ruining themselves 
by the habit, although to the casual observer the people look 
strong, and certainly are most prolific. We afterwards went 
on to the wall again to look at the torrent rushing by, which, 
but for the firm foundation of natural rock upon which the 
wide stone walls are laid, must have infallibly undermined 
them. We saw framework of houses and roofs sweeping down. 
The weather cleared up towards nightfall and we hope really 
to be released to-morrow. 

July 21. — Rain over and freshetsubsiding. Our fortnight, 
so far, has coincided with the Chinese period Shio-shu (Small 
Heat). We are now entering the fortnightly period entitled 
Great Heat, which we are thus fortunately escaping from. 
Paid our hotel bill, which, after the customary wrangle, was 
settled by our boy at 4960 cash (175.), this heavy sum includ- 
ing " compensation for disturbance/ 1 caused by permitting two 
foreigners to lodge there. We provided our own food, but 
patronised the landlord's wine (to keep out the damp). Our 
servants paid tariff rates for themselves, making a gain on the 
250 cash per day extra which we allowed them while travelling. 
At eight o'clock we got our train under way, and, emerging 
from the walls, found ourselves on the great western road, a 
fine stone pathway, fully 3 feet wide. It was a hot, sunny 
morning, and if any air was moving we were entirely shut out 
from it by the luxuriant vegetation on either hand, so that 
after an hour or two's walking, we were glad to mount our 
sedans. We were ascending the left bank of the Ya river, 
which flowed at our left hand, about a quarter of a mile wide, 
a continuous unnavigable rapid. In places the path was cut 
out of cliffs overhanging the whirlpools; again, it turned 
inland, mounting up wooden steeps, and then descending to 
boulder-flats covered with thick bush and evidently seldom 
inundated. Here again the red sandstone cliffs were dotted 
with Mantze caves, their truly cut square openings looking like 
port-holes of a rock fortress. Soon after noon we reached the 
ferry, and crossed the swift-flowing river in wide flat-bottomed 



Digitized by 



Google 



58 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

ferry-boats without difficulty. A half-hour's walk on the other 
side, through delightfully wooded country, brought us to the 
town of Suchi (Joyous Stream), an important feeder of Kiating's 
silk, wax, and rice trade. Suchi is an unusually pleasing town, 
owing to its picturesque river of clear water — the " Omi w — 
' the sixteen-arch low stone bridge by which it was approached, 
and the groves of magnificent banyans growing along its 
banks and shading the waterside houses from the almost 
tropical rays of the mid-day sun. We took tiffin in a ch'aski 
(tea — food), and secured a table overlooking the river, which 
flowed down from the sacred mountain, and the feeling that 
we were now really on our holiday ground added to our enjoy- 
ment of the meal. The inn, too, was full of returning wor- 
shippers, with their yellow incense satchels and pilgrim staves 
telling of the coming climb from which only one more inn might 
now separate us. We, too, as intending pilgrims, were treated 
by the people with a politeness which had so far been sadly 
wanting. In the 40 It to Suchi we had already risen 150 feet 
above Kiating, and to Omi Hsien, or the district city of Omi, 
only 40 It farther, the rise is another 100 feet. The stone path 
wound through luxuriant fields of paddy bordered by apple 
trees, fraxinus (an ash tree on which the wax insect is placed 
to deposit its valuable product), fine pterocarpa (the winged 
willow), and fir trees. At times the path followed the bank of 
the Omi river, now reduced to the size of the Severn, its banks 
in places not unlike those of the English river, with its gentle 
hills and dark foliage. At five we passed through the crowded, 
dirty, but fairly wide street of the market town of Chin Chia 
CKang (Chfin family market), emerging from which we were 
gladdened at last by the sight of Omi itself towering above its 
attendant ranges of foot-hills. At 7.30, just after dusk, we 
entered the walls of Omi city, and ended a tiring but delightful 
day in one of the crowded inns which are the raison cTitre of 
the pilgrim city. The city of Omi is a walled quadrangle, a 
mile each side, built on a flat immediately at the base of the 
Omi foot-hills. The inn was exceptionally filthy and crowded 



Digitized by 



Google 




Ancient Bronze Pagoda in Shfin Chi Sze Temple on Mount Omi. Its surface is 
covered with Miniature Buddbas. Made probably in the Fifteenth Century. 



Digitized by 



Google 









Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 59 

with pilgrims, whose noise, coupled with the heat and the 
mosquitoes, promised us another comfortless night. 

July 22. — We were glad to rise at dawn (5 a.m.) and escape 
from the noisome caravansary on to the quiet town wall, 
whence we had a glorious view of Omi and our first sniff of 
fresh mountain air. As the sun rose, Omi towered 10,000 feet 
above our heads, a rich purple mass, gradually changing into . 
blue, and then disappearing altogether as the mists rose like 
vast columns of smoke from the poppy-filled valleys at its foot. 
We returned for a light breakfast and managed to get our train 
off by half-past six, starting in company with numerous parties 
of pilgrims, male and female, the latter stumping gaily along 
despite their poor crippled feet; a few, like ourselves, had 
chairs; but rich and poor were all dressed in their best clothes, 
and we could not but feel that we, in our uncouth and travel- 
stained garments, made but a poor show amidst the festive 
crowd, although the sedan chairs following us, to-day for the last 
time, testified to our respectability. A gradual but steady ascent 
through groves of ash and pine brought us to the first of the 
seventy-two objects of veneration — the Shto Chi Sze, a ruinous 
temple in which is a huge bell said to weigh 2500 catties, and 
a bronze pagoda about 15 feet high, covered with thousands of 
miniature Buddhas cast and then engraved on its surface. 
These antiquities mostly date from the Ming dynasty — often 
from the reign of the Emperor Wan Li (fifteenth century) and 
his devout Empress. Like other objects of interest on Mount 
Omi, this pagoda is roofed over and fenced In with wooden 
palings so as to protect it from too assiduous worshippers, and 
thus the view is obstructed and, but for the bright morning 
sun, we should have found it impossible to photograph. It is 
an interesting relic of ancient religious fervour, but as a work 
of art of no particular interest. 

From Shen Chi Sze on we passed up a small terraced valley 
until we came face to face with the first limestone cliffs of Omi 
and through a natural gateway by which the Omi river breaks 
its way and makes possible the precipitous path by which we 



Digitized by 



Google 



60 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

enter the mountain. For like the sacred Fujiyama so has 
Mount Omi its entrance, its courts, its roofs, and pinnacles^ all 
carefully named and. mapped out. Winding round on a path 
cut out of the cliff side we enter an amphitheatre with 
numerous waterfalls gushing from its walls to feed the Omi 
river which winds along its floor. The heights are crowned 
with pine forests, and patches of maize compete with banks of 
fern for the narrow spaces available below. Again, the ravine 
narrows, and an iron suspension bridge, the first of the kind we 
had seen, leads to some temples on the left bank. A carved stone 
tablet tells us that this is Chang-sho-chiao, or " Bridge of Long 
Life/ 9 and that it was erected in the time of the Mings — a period 
apparently as fruitful in public works as these later times seem 
to be deficient in them. These bridges are common in the 
West and are all on the same plan — parallel chains made fast 
to the rocks on each bank without any supplementary support, 
These chains have short, loose planks laid transversely across 
them to walk on, the whole being almost rudimentary in its 
simplicity, as are all Chinese attempts at engineering. Thanks 
to the goodness of the material — charcoal-smelted iron — these 
bridges seem to last notwithstanding the extreme tension to 
which the chains are subjected : the most notable hereabouts 
is that over the Tung river at Luting, which has a span of 
400 feet and was built in the seventeenth century, and over 
it passes the whole traffic between China and Thibet. 

Winding to the left and creeping along close into the side of 
the precipice, the path having been washed out in places by the 
recent storms, we turned into a delightful side valley, and 
followed up an affluent of the Omi river until we came to the 
romantically situated temple and restaurant built astride the 
rocky peninsula dividing the two streams which unite at its 
foot. Two ancient stone bridges give access to the peninsula, 
crossing the deep gorge cut out by the roaring stream on either 
side of it, and provide this charming spot with its appropriate 
name of Soang-fei-ch'iao (Pair of Flying Bridges). At the 
restaurant built on the point of the rock looking down into the 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 61 

foaming waters on either hand, we took our tiffin and discussed 
the advisability of making our first halt here, for we felt we 
were satisfied and, whatever more might be in store for us 
farther on, we wanted nothing better than this as yet. But 
we had barely risen IOOO feet and it was hot. Tiffin finished, 
I scrambled down to the bottom of the glen and, seated on a 
rock beside the limpid water, at last found coolness and peace. 
Of the many natives in the temple and tea-house, none cared 
to follow me down there, and I smoked a cigar undisturbed by 
requests to try its flavour or anxious inquiries as to the cost 
per foot of the flannel of my shirt. Great, however, as was 
our enjoyment of the spot, we found the temple too small 
and crowded to afford us the accommodation we required for 
ourselves and followers, so we decided to go on to the renowned 
Wan.Uien.Sze or "Temple of Ten Thousand Years," which i 
forms usually the pilgrims' first halting-place in their ascent of 
the mountain. 

While resting at the " Flying Bridges " we were accosted by 
a pleasant-mannered Chinese who carried a butterfly net, and 
who actually seemed pleased to see us. Presently two more 
men joined him, carrying boxes in which rows of the varied and 
gorgeous butterflies which adorn these valleys were neatly 
pinned down. They turned out to be collectors in the pay 
of Mr. Pratt, and they were also Roman Catholic converts — a 
double title to our sympathy, which explained their friend- 
liness. They offered to present us with many beautiful speci- 
mens which they declared to have no value, but we did not care 
to burden ourselves with them. 

A further ascent of iooo feet brought us in good time to our 
destination for the present, and to the terminus of our sedan- 
chair journey, Wan Nien Sze. The road crosses a wide valley, 
entered by the pass of Soang-fei-chio, from which once more a 
view of the Omi summit is obtainable; it then ascends a steep 
staircase, passing under a fortress-like archway with pavilion 
over it enclosing a shrine dedicated to Lingwun (the soul),/ 
and entering an open court with temples on three sides. From 



Digitized by 



Google 



62 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the fourth side, and at right angles to the road by which we 
had entered, rises a succession of flights of stone steps, 1 5 or 
20 feet wide, a grand staircase going up the only practicable 
approach to the flat-topped, steep-sided hill buttress, upon 
which stand the ranges of temples and out-buildings known as 
Wan Nien Sze. Groves of fine old trees surround the entrance, 
and the air of repose and comfort, which characterises Buddhist 

, temples everywhere, is strongly impressed upon the Weary 
pilgrim, inviting him to rest awhile in the sacred precincts 
before setting out upon his further 7000 feet climb to the Holy 
of Holies on the top. 

We were shown into a side court-yard with spacious guest- 
rooms, kitchens, and servants' quarters built round it, a seem- 
ingly most delightful retreat after our late noisome quarters in 
the inns on the way. It was really (Mng, as the Chinese 
say, " peaceful," and, by shutting the outer door leading into 
the court-yard, we enjoyed absolute privacy. Only afterwards 
did we find the drawbacks to this haven of rest in the dank 
vegetation and wet soil of the court-yard and the intolerable 
odours from the kitchen-drains whenever the wind blew from 
that quarter. Lesser annoyances were the mosquitoes and 
scissor-grinders, whose name was legion. However, " Excel- 

. sior " was our motto, and it only depended upon ourselves to 
ascend to a region where these plagues should be unknown. 
Meanwhile we determined upon a few days' rest to enable us 
to recuperate, and, at the same time, to explore the surrounding 
country and examine at our leisure the antiquities in the 
temples in our immediate neighbourhood. 

July 23. — Paid off our chair-coolies and porters, their con- 
tract terminating at Wan Nien Sze. The troublesome settle- 
ment — with wrangles over the cash, the number on a string 
(there should be 1000, but they are always short 20 to 30), the 
number of bad cash (tnoa chien), the allowance for the days we 
halted at Kiating, and the determination of the customary 
bonuses occupied our " boy " pretty well all the morning. The 
total came to $72, or, including inns and food, about £14 for 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 63 

over 300 miles' journey, which had occupied in all just fifteen 
days. 

We were now 3000 feet above sea level, and had reached the 
pleasant temperature of 79 ° day maximum, and 72 ° night 
minimum. The air was balmy, but still relaxing. Szechuan 
air is distinguished by its dampness and stillness, and these 
foot-hills of Mount Omi possess the same character. A wood 
surrounds the temple and continues up the hill-side, but the 
clearings are getting yearly larger, and our walks were mostly 
on paths leading through maize, which grew over our heads 
and entirely shut out any light air that might be moving. 
Although the sun shone hotly in the intervals between the 
many showers, usual here in summer, yet the higher mountains 
seemed constantly enveloped in a cloud. The trees that mostly 
attracted our attention were the rich-foliaged " Lohan " pine 
(lohan or disciples of Buddha) and the omnipresent hoangko. 
The temples themselves are by no means the always elegant, > 
and often exquisitely beautiful, buildings one is accustomed to - 
in other places. Those on Mount Omi are externally plain 
wooden buildings, unpainted. Internally they are adorned with 
the profuse gilding and brilliant colours which one usually looks 
for in Chinese temples, Buddhist and Taoist alike. Most of 
them contain fragments of older and more elaborate buildings 
which have succumbed to fire or old age, and which the lessened 
religious feeling of later times has rebuilt on an inferior scale. 
Our own temple of Wan Nien Sze, although the residence of an 
abbot, contains little remarkable ; but immediately behind it, and 
forming part of the same range of buildings, is the Chuan Tien, 
which gives shelter to the most striking monument of these 
parts — viz., the image of Pusien seated on an elephant, a * 
magnificent bronze-casting on a colossal scale, dating from the 
seventh century a.d. (period of the Tang dynasty), which 
Baber reckoned as the greatest of his discoveries in this region, 
which he was the first European to explore. Mount Omi is 
specially sacred to Pusien who, the legend states, came across 
from India on his elephhant and established himself on his 



Digitized by 



Google 



64 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

mountain in the time of the Chin dynasty, a.d. 265-313. The 
image, which is almost pure copper, stands 16 Chinese feet 
high— over 17 English — and represents a young man with the 
usual Buddhist placid expression and the Buddhist exaggeration 
of feature : his elephant isonly 1 1 feet high, and looks dwarfed by 
comparison. A lotus-flower resting on the animal's back forms 
the pedestal of the image. The temple enclosing the monument 
is, possibly with the exception of a few pagodas, the oldest 
extant building in China. It is built of small, very close- 
\ grained, hard-baked bricks, in the shape of a cube surmounted 
-. by a dome, utterly unlike anything Chinese. The exterior is 
not visible, being entirely hidden by the modern wooden 
building erected over it, an erection of rough, unpainted wood, 
very unsightly, and which absolutely precludes one from 
obtaining any view of the original building. This " protection " 
has more than once been destroyed by fire, on which occasions 
considerable damage has been done to the monument No 
view or photograph can be taken of it : the " protection " forms 
part and parcel of the adjoining wooden temples and monks' 
dwellings, which entirely surround it One comes upon the 
monument in a hole-and-corner way, and all "effect" is 
entirely destroyed. The inside walls are alone visible, and the 
illustrations in Captain Gill's book (copied in the Reverend 
Virgil Hart's) are surely imaginary. Between the inside walls 
and the bronze image a heavy stone palisade has been erected, 
some 7 feet high, so that it is not easy to see anything at all 
in the gloom of the windowless building. This very solid 
palisade was only put up a few years back to preserve the 
elephant from the assiduity of worshippers who, by the constant 
rubbing of copper cash on his limbs, were gradually destroying 
the beauty of their detail, which is very remarkable. Altogether 
1 the monument is a work of art, of so finished execution, and so 
true to nature, that Baber is probably right in doubting its 
being a purely Chinese conception. The enclosing building 
forms a square of 40 feet inside measurement, the walls being 
about 6 feet thick ; on these is built a hemispherical dome, of 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 65 

which Baber remarks : " To the eye the architectural process 
of squaring the circle is perfectly simple; the dome springs 
from a rim which stands a little back from the circle thus 
formed and so gains a few additional feet of diameter and 
increased lightness of appearance/' 

Thousands of minute bronze Buddhas, placed in orderly rows 
on the edges of the bricks, decorate the interior wall : many of 
these are temporarily lodged there by Thibetan pilgrims, who 
credit the images with superior sanctity after a residence in this 
holy spot has been gone through. 

In Buddhist lore Pusien is Samanta Bhadra Bodhisatva. He < 
is the god of action, and his elephant signifies caution. Whether 
he was really an apostle from India, or whether he ever existed 
in the flesh at all, there seems to be now no evidence to prove. 
In the different persecutions that Buddhism has from time to 
time been subject to since its introduction into China, and in 
the destruction of its shrines and temples during one or more 
of the periodical revolutions, that have swept over the country 
like an all-destroying whirlwind, the old records have perished, 
and, for what concerns the historical part of their religion, the 
priests of to-day have to fall back on a scanty tradition and a 
lively imagination. It was just after Buddhism had reached 
its culminating point that the Emperor HienTung, who reigned 
from a.d. 860-876, melted down the bronzes — sacrificial vessels, 
and images together — into copper cash and made bonfires of the 
sacred books. Hence, even with the " Light of Asia "as a 
guide, it is difficult to feel a real interest in these old Buddhist 
worthies, who are objects of such sincere adoration by the 
Chinese, simply because it is impossible to feel sure that many, 
if not most, of them are not purely mythical. Pusien is lodged 
in the Ytt-shu-chuan-tien (Brick Hall under Imperial edict), \ 
the central of the three temples erected under Imperial patron- 
age and collectively known as Wan Nien Sze, a title which, 
meaning literally " the temple of 10,000 years/ 9 is in figurative ! 
language simply "His Imperial Majesty's Temple." Our 
lodging is in the front temple, called the Pi-lu-tien or " Hall of 



Digitized by 



Google 



66 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Pilu," a name of Buddha ; one of the most notable images in it 
is that of W&i-shu (Manjusri), the " God of Wisdom." He is 
represented seated on a lion, the emblem of courage. The 
rearmost of the three is the " Pure-water pond " — Peh-shui- 
chih, or " New Hall." All three compete for the patronage of 
pilgrims, and a foreigner, when he has made a donation in the 
first hall, is a little surprised to be asked for more as he passes 
into an adjoining court-yard, on the ground that the treasuries 
and personnel of the three " Halls " are quite separate and 
distinct. 

July 24/A to July 27/A. — We escaped from our malodorous 
court-yard by sitting under the magnificent trees on the steep 
hill-side, our ears stunned by scissor-grinders. Heavy showers 
alternated with hot sunshine — real July weather. The altitude 
of 3200 feet we found gave us a pleasant but still relaxing 
climate, in which long walks were a toil and the dolce far 
niente of a pipe on the grass only too seductive. We lay on the 
grass under the trees and played chess, thinking the while of 
Mortimer Collins' charming ode to chess played on the lawns of 
Richmond, and watching the throngs of pilgrims filing up the 
long wide staircase with their staves ; men and women dressed 
in clean blue and white garments, and shod with bright straw 
sandals, a rosette over the big toe and blue ribbons crossing the 
instep and tied above the ankle. Slung across their shoulders 
they carried the yellow incense bags (colour sacred to Buddha 
and to the Emperor), out of which they lit the joss-sticks at each 
shrine, dropping two or three copper cash into the offertory, 
kneeling and bowing devoutly, and then passing on up the 
mountain. For economy's sake the mass of the pilgrims 
make the whole ascent of 120 Urn one day if they are able, and, 
marvellous to say, many club-footed women are among the 
number! Seven thousand feet above us was, we knew, to 
be found a counterpart of the bracing air of our island 
home, and so we reluctantly determined to leave our Capua 
with its warmth and sunshine, and climb up to the 
mysterious cloudland which repelled us fully as much as it 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 67 

attracted us. We feared lest "striving to better, oft we 
jnar^what's well/' should again prove only too true in our 
case, but go on we must, and so we made our arrange- 
ments to flit at early dawn next day. We reduced our baggage 
to six coolie loads by packing up all superfluities^ and left them 
together with our two sedan chairs in charge of the chief priest, 
to be held to our order or until our return. We had accepted 
an invitation to dine with him on this last day, and soon after 
noon one of the acolytes called at our quarters to escort us to \ 
the banquet-chamber. This was the reception-room, and it had 
been decorated for the occasion by red hangings from the 
tables and blue silk embroideries covering the chairs. This 
guest-room was a spacious hall, handsomely furnished with 
carved rosewood chairs and tables, the present of a wealthy 
official from the capital (Chentgtu). At the upper end was an 
altar with brass images and an incense burner, and the walls 
were hung with kakemonos, representing saints, sages, sacred 
texts, and laudatory and devout lucubrations presented by 
visitors celebrated for their caligraphy. The dining- table was 
set out with the usual hors cFceuvres of melon seeds, apricot 
seeds, sugared walnuts, sweet cakes and comfits, but with tea 
(grown on the mountain) for an accompaniment — wine, as well as 
fish, flesh, and fowl, being, of course, religiously excluded. 
We sat down four — our two selves, our "boy," who as kuansze 
(General Manager, or Gentlemanly Manager would be Burnand's 
translation) is a " personage/' and no small one either, and the 
Chief Priest, whose joining himself in the feast conferred a 
distinguished honour on us. After nibbling away about an 
hour, and hearing till we were tired out of the poverty of the 
temple and its pressing needs, the dinner proper was served. 
This consisted of nine dishes, prepared, of course, from 
vegetables alone, and, strange to say, we found every one of the 
nine dishes most excellent. In ordinary Chinese dinners there 
is too much lard used in frying to please the European palate ; 
but here, where all animal fat is forbidden, ts'ai you, or rape-i 
seed oil, is the medium, and very good we found everything. 



Digitized by 



Google 



68 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

We particularly admired a curious dish of pumpkin-flower 
beignets, a sweet soup with ground nuts, and a preparation of 
bean curd with chopped mushrooms inside, reminding one of 
the flavour of toasted cheese. After the dinner came the 
Yuan-pu, or u Subscription Book of the Temple," a large album- 
like volume in which benefactors write their donations on huge 
" cards " of red paper which are pasted in, two to a page. Now 
came the tug of war. The priest wanted (so he said) one 
hundred taels, or at least a " feng," as a shoe of sycee — fifty 
taels — is called hereabouts. We humbly suggested ten taels, 
pleading we had a long journey before us, and, as this is fully 
equivalent to a £10 donation in Europe, we thought we were 
being fairly liberal. Then the priest said we were surely not 
going to give less than an American missionary who had been 
there the summer before, and he triumphantly turned up a card 
upon which was written in big characters : 

Great Empire of America, 

Loo-ee-si, 

Sixty taels. 

This was a stumper, although we felt sure it could not be 

true. (We afterwards inquired of Mr. Lewis, who told us the 

amount was about six taels for a longer stay and a larger 

party.) At length I took the brush in my hand to write, and 

had just written : 

Great Empire of England, 
British Merchant, 
Lee-teh-lo, w 
and was commencing the word "ten" when an acolyte 
snatched the pen from my fingers. Ultimately, after a long 
squabble, and pointing out that we had many more temples 
to subscribe to, I succeeded in sticking to my original sum, 
much to their apparent chagrin, but to the credit of " foreign " 
determination. " They mean what they say," our u boy " ex- 
plained to them. 

The afternoon turned out very hot and close, so we ascended 
by 1000 stone steps to a knoll where we found a slight 



Digitized by 



Google 



AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT OMI 69 

breeze and the air perceptibly cooler. We - enjoyed a lovely 
view, looking down on Wan Nien Sze, and the headland on 
which it stands, jutting out from an amphitheatre of steep 
forest-clad mountains, through which the Omi stream appears 
to have scooped out a wide valley with precipitous limestone 
walls. All above was cloudland, notwithstanding that the 
cliffs below were gilded with the setting sun, and that through 
the gap by which we had entered the mountain the plain of 
Kiating (if one may so call it by comparison) was distinctly 
visible, fading away into the dark distance of the eastern 
horizon. Some peasants warned us to hurry back, and not to 
be out in the woods after dark, a party of five men having 
been recently attacked by a tiger and all killed — " recently " may 
mean, however, at any time within the memory of men now 
living. No doubt the extensive clearings and the supplanting 
the forests by maize-fields has largely reduced the number of 
wild animals which abound in the surrounding ranges. Omi 
itself, at least the eastern slopes, may now be looked upon as 
a completely civilised mountain ; the wilderness proper begins 
on the western slope. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER V 

ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 

Life-sizbd Image of Tiger — Upwards and Onwards — Temple Break- 
fast— Delightful Pine Wood— Hua Yen Ting, the one Taoist Temple 
on Mountain— Destructive Fires — On the Brink of a Precipice- 
Thanksgiving to the Earth— Lotus Rock Temple— Where Pusien 
washed his Elephant— Wealthy and Inhospitable Temple— Rest 
at last I— Virgin Forest— Wood-cutte^s , Path— Charred Images- 
Magnificent Panorama — Tei Tung Ping — First View of Snow 
Summits of Thibet— Rhododendron Jungle— Teh Fun! — From.Temple 
to Temple — Flesh and Blood Images — Summit Plateau — Awful 
Precipice — Thousand Buddhas' Shrine — Fifty Taels a Night — 
Picnicking on the Mountain — Golden Pavilion Temple. 

July 28. — Off at six ; none too soon, for at seven we already 
■ felt the sun oppressive as we toiled up the endless flights of 
stone steps. We passed the temple of the "Goddess of Mercy/' 
Kwanyin Ko; rounded a fantistic-shaped rock resembling a. 
colossal man, called T'aitze-shih (the " Rock of the Heir Ap- 
parent"), passed a poor-looking temple built on a narrow edge, 
called Kwan-shin-po (" Examine the Heart " declivity), whose 
priest was most anxious to persuade us to stop and breakfast ; 
then to a larger temple, gaudily decorated and in good repair, 
with a life-sized tiger (image) in a pen and in a small "joss- 
house " of its own on the left of the entrance. Propitiating this 
dreadful being by gifts of incense and the regulation kotow, the 
pilgrims hope to secure themselves and their community from 
his depredations. We entered the temple for breakfast, it 
being now a quarter to eight, and found tea and cakes ready 
spread for our arrival. A plain cake of wheat-flour unleavened, 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAINS SIDE 71 

with a dab of coarse brown sugar in the centre, sopped, native 
fashion, in hot tea, made a refreshing early breakfast. This 
luxury was, so the priests told us, brought up from the city of 
Omi. The Yuan-pu was produced, but we refused to put down 
our names, giving only a few hundred cash as a return for the 
tea and cakes. This temple is the Si Shin So, or " Rest of the 
Heart of Fane," and the priests certainly did their best to get 
us to take a long rest there. But we did not delay, and 
mounting 815 more steep steps we reached the next temple of 
Chang Lea Ping (lit. " Venerable Flat "), meaning a level spot 1 
utilised for a sacred erection by some reverend monk of long ' 
ago. The spot we thought indeed beautifully chosen, as from 
the stone terrace in front through a screen of fine firs we caught 
glimpses of the steep valley, up the side of which we had just 
climbed. All round grew the pine forest, and the shade and 
freshness were delightful What better air could we desire ? 
Why not stop here and enjoy the fragrant breeze from the dew- 
covered sun-bathed fir-trees, reclining meanwhile on the thick 
carpet of moss and fir needles ? Why go on toiling up those 
interminable steps which seem to lead away from the sunshine 
and the grassy slopes and up into a forbidding region of rock - 
and mist ? So we spoke as we watched the neatly clad pil- 
grims who stopped to examine us — more surprised than pleased 
at our appearance. But duty carried the day, and we set out 
once more ; this time up 910 steps (counting them was the 
only way to be avenged on them), landing us on a narrow ledge, 
the summit of a sort of promontory jutting out from the main 
mountain mass, about half-way up. The only break in the 
ascent was at an outlying rocky point upon which stands, sur- 
rounded by the pine forest, the temple known as Tsu Tien, • 
or " First Hall," a poor establishment, although, like Wan Nien 
Sze and Si Shin Si, it boasts an abbot, and so ranks above the 
many inferior fanes on the mountain. We had now entered 
the clouds and just managed to find our way in the thick fog to 
the gate of the Hua Ten Ting without falling over the edge 
of the precipice above which it stands. 



Digitized by 



Google 



72 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

We were now up 5000 feet, and had said adieu to the heat 
which was not to trouble us again for many days to come. 
We had, however, got very hot during the climb, and the sharp 
contrast compelled us quickly to change into warmer garments, 
and we found the stools round the wide ash-filled hearth, over 
which the tea-kettle was simmering at one end of the guest- 
chamber of the temple, a grateful resort. The Hua Yen Ting 
or "Pinnacle of Contemplation/' so named after the treatise on 
religious contemplation by a priest (Tu-shun) of the Tang 
dynasty, is the one large Taoist temple on this Buddhist mountain. 
'Taoism of to-day, which is a deformed excrescence of Laotze's 
teaching, much as was mediaeval Catholicism of the teaching of 
Christ, is hardly distinguishable from Buddhism by a superficial 
observer, so great have been the borrowings of the older and 
indigenous native religion from its more modern rival. The dress 
of the priests is different ; the hair is not shorn, but worn long 
and coiled round the head ; but many of the images are almost 
identical, and the ceremonious ritual is as little dissimilar as 
is the indisputable moral teaching of the numerous ethical 
and hortatory treatises common to both sects, without which 
{pace our missionary friends and their spectre of idolatry) no 
religious body would have a locus standi in China any more 
than in Europe. 

After enjoying the hospitality of the customary tea and 
cakes in the well-furnished guest-room, pending the arrival of 
our coolies with tiffin, who came in ultimately two hours behind 
us, we set out on an inspection of the monastery and its sur- 
roundings. As usual with these so-called temples, the Hua 
Yen Ting comprised an extensive range of buildings quite at 
variance with the idea of a single edifice usually associated 
with the word and strikingly parallel to the huge .monastic 
establishments of mediaeval Europe — places of worship, priests 9 
quarters, acolytes' quarters, guest-rooms for visitors, rich and 
poor, rooms for wandering priests, of whom there are vast 
numbers, and each one of whom can by prescribed custom 
demand three days' board and lodging at every fane, servants' 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 73 

quarters, cooks' and woodcutters', and places for artisans from 
a distance, of whom several are almost constantly employed at 
the more flourishing establishments. The Hua Yen Ting 
evidently belonged to this category, for new erections were in 
progress — of wood, cut from the surrounding forests belonging 
to the temple, and the whole of the buildings boasted roofs of 
zinctiles (worth 55. a piece) supported on heavy closely spaced 
pillars of magnificent cedar. The lower portions of the walls 
were of brick, all of which has to be carried up the mountain, 
on stone foundations, and the upper portion of thick pine 
planking. Fires are very destructive hereabouts, and through- 
out these mountains we rarely passed a day without seeing 
traces of the work of the "devouring element/ 1 The poorer 
temples and cottages are either thatched or roofed with 
shingles. The latter are specially inflammable, and, with the 
open wood-fires on the earthen floors of the rooms, it can be 
only owing to the generally damp climate that any of these 
lightly built "frame" houses survive at all. On stepping 
outside the walls we found ourselves brought up by a balus- 
trade, on peering over which we discerned nothing but the tops 
of a few pines, just distinguishable in the thick white mist with 
which everything was enveloped and which was dripping from 
the eaves behind us, and realised that we were standing on the 
brink of a lofty precipice. 

Inside a " high mass " was going on. Sie fu, literally * 
11 Thanksgiving to the earth, 91 so the priests called the service, 
which comprised recitations from the sacred books by rows of 
priests in gorgeous canonicals, accompanied by gongs, cymbals, 
and drums — a " full choral service " — which went on during 
the whole of the three hours we spent there, much to our 
edification, but to the impediment of conversation with the 
polite priest who was guest-entertainer for the day. We felt 
quite pained at having to refuse his request to circulate a 
handsome brand-new Yuan-pu, or subscription-book, among our 
friends when we got back, which he produced and begged us 
to take away. We even refused to put our own names down, lest 



Digitized by 



Google 



74 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

our donation should be magnified ad majorem Dei ghriam, for 
the benefit of future travellers, but gave our modest contribution 
in copper cash, and, at 2 p.m., set out once more on our upward 
journey. 

A pleasant change greeted us on setting out, in the shape of 
a few hundred yards of comparatively level road. We were 
evidently following the edge of one of the narrow arites 
peculiar to these mountains, which connected the pinnacle on 
which the Hua Yen Ting stands with the mountain proper, on 
reaching which the steep stone staircase immediately recom- 
mences. Meanwhile we traversed the paved road, between 
narrow hedges of wild evergreens, which barely protected us 
from a fathomless abyss of fog on either side. 

This being our first day of real walking we determined to 
make it a short one, and had given rendezvous to our servants 
and porters at the Si Siang Chih, or "Wash Elephant Pool," a 
spacious temple two hours farther on ; so we had not hurried 
ourselves at the Hua Yen Ting. Not long after leaving it we 
reached the temple called Lien Hun Shih, or " Lotus Rock," a 
large rambling wooden building, embracing three sides of a 
wide quadrangle. We were so pleased with the site that we 
asked the priest to let us look at the guest-rooms, but these, 
though spacious, were so dilapidated and so dark that we at 
once abandoned the idea of stopping there. Lien Hua Shih 
boasts no abbot, but its situation at the junction of two valleys 
is very fine, and one of the best places we had seen from which 
to make excursions, as there are undulating paths in various 
directions, and one has something more than the choice between 
going up or down a ladder, which is all that many of the 
wayside stopping-places afford. A path branching off south- 
east winds through possibly the wildest and most romantic 
valley on the mountain, with precipitous walls all thickly 
wooded, and leads to many beautifully situated and very 
inaccessible looking temples, chief among which is the Chiu 
' Lao Tung, or "Cave of the Nine Ancients," and Hung Ch'un 
Ping, or " Red Banyan Flats." Both possess abbots and are 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 75 

likely to be desirable places to stay in. This path winds round 
eventually to Soang Fei Chao, our idyllic halting-place of the 
" Flying Bridges " six days ago. As we left the Lotus Rock it 
began to rain, and the priest called out to us to take an 
umbrella, but, as we were in flannels and had no great distance 
to go, we trudged on as we were, and shortly before dusk 
reached our destination, the " Elephant's Pool," where tradition 
says that Pusien washed his elephant after crossing the moun- 
tain from the west. The pool has since been walled in, and is % 
now a still hexagonal fish-pond, about 20 yards in diameter, f 
down whose vertical sides no modern elephant would venture. 
Behind it, and sheltered by the open forest of pine and oak, 
stands the temple built to commemorate the fact. It and the 
pool stand on an out-jutting rocky platform with precipitous 
sides, such as are affected for temple sites wherever obtainable, 
known as the Chuan T'ien Po, or " Cloud-piercing Mountain." % 
The temple is spacious, in excellent order, evidently wealthy, 
and boasts an abbot. " No room " was the unwelcome sound 
dinned into our ears by a crowd who came out as they saw us 
emerging from under the trees and ascending the wide flight of 
stone steps leading to the entrance ; however, we had made up 
our minds to spend the night here, and entered the guest-room 
almost unasked. Here we were confronted — as we modestly 
seated ourselves low down in the handsome room — by a very 
fair-spoken young priest, who told us the temple was full, and 
that he had positively no room whatever. Had he shown us 
the civility of offering us tea (which would have been most 
grateful after our long climb), a proceeding de rigueur with every 
guest according to Chinese etiquette, I should have believed him 
and gone on at once ; but when, in addition to his rudeness, he 
remarked that he knew foreigners well, having been in Shanghai, 
it appeared to me that he did not want us there because of the 
native gentry who were in the temple at the time. So we 
appealed to some of the elder priests sitting round not to turn 
us out into the dark and rain, but they put on the stolid non 
comprendo look of Chinamen who desire to avoid an unpleasant 



Digitized by 



Google 



76 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

subject. Our coolies now came up with their loads, and we 
were loath to have to compel them to resume the ascent at this 
hour. But there was nothing for it, and feeling ourselves 
martyrs, tired out as we were, we marched on two miles 
farther, to the temple of Ta Cheng Sze, or "Great Classic of 
Discipline (Vinaya)," having come 35 It (10 miles), and 
ascended 4500 feet since the morning, a bagatelle to us a 
month later, though we then thought it a most creditable 
achievement. The whole path led up through a thick forest, 
in the midst of which our temple was built. The pilgrims 9 
room being dark and small, the obliging young priest in charge 
(the abbot being away) kindly allowed us the large guest-room to 
ourselves, and we spread our beds on its floor, and, after a hasty 
supper seated round the open hearth, were soon sound asleep, 
revelling in the need of thick blankets to keep out the cold. 

July 29. — Every spot on this unique mountain seems so 
delightful, and the air so pure and fresh without the rawness of 
more northern latitudes, that we planned to stay in it at some 
future time. We decided there and then to spend a day at the 
temple of the " Vinaya* of Discipline." We could see little 
on account of the fog, but we found that we were on the slope of 
a steep hill rising behind us, thickly wooded, with a precipice 
in front screened by the fir trees, through which we gazed on a 
sea of white fog. We walked along the path we had traversed 
the day before, which, running a few hundred yards along a 
ridge before suddenly dropping by a very steep flight to the 
lower level of the "Elephant's Pool/ 1 gave us a comparatively 
level walk, with forests of firs and magnificent rhododendron 
trees on either hand. No clearings for cultivation have, at 
this altitude, destroyed the forest, and we rejoiced in the 
absence of the tall maize which seemed always to shut us in at 
Wan Nien Sze. We climbed up a woodcutters' path in rear 
of the temple, and found men at work felling trees, and cut- 
ting up logs for the winter's fuel supply of the tejnple, and 
for the rebuilding of the main shrine which had recently been 
destroyed by fire. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 77 

We were made practically aware of the disaster by being led 
round the charred ruins by the priest and asked to sympathise 
with the unfortunate condition of the scorched and blistered 
josses. The rear temple was being solidly rebuilt, a swarm of 
carpenters rounding off with their adzes the fine cedar logs 
cut from the neighbouring forest. One colossal Buddha had 
just been re-gilt. " Give one ting ten taels {£2) and re-gild 
the ' Goddess of Mercy/ " said the priest, " and she will ensure 
you male progeny/' as he pointed to a dilapidated lump of 
charred wood and clay temporarily adjusted against the newly 
built wall; "or present us with an iron roof, such as you 
foreigners are so clever in making, and immortalise your name 
on the sacred mountain." We were glad to escape his impor- 
tunities and climb the steep path behind the temple ; it was 
close upon sunset ; the mist disappeared in warm sunshine ; a 
magnificent panorama of rocks and ravines unrolled itself at our 
feet ; steep-wooded peaks rose up out of the sea of fog ; below 
these precipices, mostly covered with thick green jungle ; last of 
all, 6000 feet below, the valley floor with the white thread of the 
Omi river winding through it. Then suddenly a black cloud rose 
from behind us (south-west) to the zenith, and a magnificent 
storm of thunder and lightning filled the sky. As the storm 
came on we could almost see the contortions of the dragon 
which Chinese artists depict so grandly in their black and white 
sketches, until at last a cold rain drove us quickly down the 
path and into our room where our cook had prepared us a most 
welcome hot supper. The abbot was still away, and in the 
evening the priest in charge, a vivacious young man endowed 
with a most importunate curiosity, gave us more of his company 
than we desired ; he would not be put off without a present of 
a foreign garment, and I only got rid of him by giving him a 
merino under-shirt in addition to 2000 cash for our night's 
lodging. Average of boiling-point readings made the height 
7900 feet above sea-level. 

July 3a — A glorious morning after last night's storm. 
Started at five o'clock, the sun just gilding the heights above us, 



Digitized by 



Google 



78 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the thermometer 6o° Fahrenheit, and an air so balmy that to 
breathe it was to breakfast, as we set out again up the steep 
stone steps that led through the pine forest to the head of the 
next ridge above, upon which is built the Pai Yun Tien, well 
named the "White Cloud Hall." We did not linger here, but 
passing along the crest of the ridge, with an apparently fathom- 
less abyss on our left, and an almost vertical wooded slope on 
our right, enjoyed the few hundred yards of level ground and 
an easy descent to the gap of Lei Tung Ping (" Thunder Cave 
Flat"), on which stands a two-storied moss-covered temple 
which nearly fills up the narrow neck. It was now half-past 
six, and what was our delighted surprise, on looking westward 
through a gap in the mountains that still towered above us, to 

' see some of the beautiful snow peaks of Thibet glittering in the 
morning sun. They stood so high and looked so isolated from 
the ranges in the foreground that I at first pronounced them to 
be clouds, and it was not until after a careful look at them with 
the binocular that I became convinced that they were really 
mountains. However, the glimpse was limited to the width of 
the gap, so we hurried on to reach the summit in hopes there 
to view the whole panorama. Alas ! Up another thousand steps 
in the morning sun, with the dew glistening from every leaf, 

♦ only to find everything obscured by the heavy rain-clouds. 
The path now led through a thick jungle of rhododendron and 
dwarf bamboo, which competed with the larger forest trees for 
such space as the precipitous nature of the ground afforded. 
We met crowds of pilgrims, male and female, who had passed 
the night on the summit and had set out at daylight on the 
homeward journey. Teh Fu, they reply to our salute, "Acquire 
bliss"; or Teh Liao Fuh, "We have acquired bliss" — and seen 
the glory of Buddha, their ecstatic faces would seem to add. 
And, as we approach the summit, the temples thicken and the 
ascent grows easier, the last steep climb ending as the ridge is 
reached upon which stands the Chieh Yin Fo, the Temple of 
the Buddhist St. Peter, who conducts the souls of the good to 
Paradise. We felt no inclination to loiter now, and so, although 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 79 

the temple is a large one and boasts an abbot, we passed on, 
looked into Kwanyin Ching, the " Well of Kwanyin, the God- 
dess of Mercy" — a spring of marvellous efficacy; past the doors 
of Tai Tse Ping, the fane built to commemorate the visit of 
the Heir Apparent of the Most Faithful Ming Emperor, Wan 
Li ; past the Yung Ch'ing Sze, or "Temple of Eternal Rejoicing," 
said to be also due to Wan Li's initiative — a thank-offering for 
his prosperous reign and a prayer for its continuance. This 
fane boasts an abbot. The next is the Tsu Sze Tien, or "Hall 
of the First Disciple (of Buddha)," celebrated for containing the 
body of a former abbot, who died in such odour of sanctity that 
after death his body suffered no decay, and so now stands in a 
shrine — mummified, dressed, and thickly gilt — as an idol before 
which worshippers devoutly kotow and burn incense. Then 
past a spacious range of two-storied buildings standing on a 
level spur of the mountain and in a grove of noble fir trees, called 
the Chen Hiang Tah, or " Pagoda Fragrant of Fossil Wood," 
a natural production very highly esteemed by the Chinese both 
as a lusus naturae and as being endowed with valuable medi- 
cinal and antiseptic qualities. Thence to the Tien Men Shih, 
or " Heaven's Gate Rock/' The path here passes through a 
narrow fissure, the vertical sandstone walls of which are covered 
with numerous ancient inscriptions. Below the "gate" is a 
roomy temple through whose main courtyard the upward road 
passes. Beyond this again we have the Tower of the Seventh 
Heaven and Pu Hsien's Tower. This last is, equally with the 
Tsu Sze Tien, famous for its Jou sh€n, or "flesh and blood" 
idol, in the body of an aged abbot who was canonised 100 
years ago. 

Here, again, the road passes through the central court-yard, 
and we find the mummy enshrined in the main pavilion, sitting 
on a throne in front of the image of Pu Hsien, to whom the 
temple is dedicated, and who sits on a lotus-flower in the 
customary curtained recess behind the altar. We were now 
nearing the summits, having ascended some 2000 feet since 
we started at dawn. The forest had ended in an undulating 



Digitized by 



Google 



80 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and gently rising plateau covered with long grass, a tangle of 
wild flowers, and a few scattered trees, with ranges of rather 
shabby-looking wooden buildings, spread over the high ground 
on our left, about a mile distant from the Pu Hsien T'a. The 
view of our long and anxiously expected goal — the summit of 
the sacred mountain — was decidedly disappointing, the clouds 
had risen, and there was no view — nothing to show we were on 
the top of a mountain — and that the most celebrated mountain 
in China to boot. It had more the aspect of a recent clearing 
in Canada; the brilliant fire-weed grew thickly scattered 
amongst the long grass, and the path of pine-planks, the running 
streams, and the swampy ponds completed the resemblance. 
We did not then know what we learnt afterwards, that only a 
year ago the eleven temples on the summit, with all their 
antiquities and many out-buildings, for the accommodation of 
the crowds of pilgrims, had, together with the surrounding 
forest, fallen a prey to the flames. Some were being solidly 
rebuilt, while the poorer ones had simply erected a temporary 
shelter out of the ruins, barely sufficing to protect the charred 
josses from the mountain storms. 

We intended making some stay on the summit, and proposed, 
if possible, to rent a room in the temple occupied by some 
American missionaries two years before, an outlying temple, 
away from the crowd of pilgrims on the summit proper, called 
Chien Fo Ting, or " Pavilion of the Thousand Buddhas." We 
inquired the way, and were told it was a couple of miles distant 
along the crest of the mountain southwards* We gazed through 
the mist in the direction indicated and could see nothing but 
grass-covered slopes, rising on our left up to the ridge which 
surmounts the great precipice, on our right jungle and forest 
just visible through the mist. At length a break in the clouds 
disclosed what appeared to be a small wooden shanty perched 
on a hill-top of its own, similar to that upon which stands the 
group of temples on the summit proper to our left. We at once 
set out, descending a ravine a few hundred feet down a steep 
mountain path which brought us to a gap in the mountain, 



Digitized by 



Google 




Summit [of Mount Omi, with Temples, 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 






Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 81 

whence, standing on the edge of the great precipice, we looked 
over into a sea of white fog. The abyss, thus seen for the first 
time, is so overaweing that we almost hesitated to walk along its 
unfenced edge. Up another steep path on the opposite side and 
we stood at the door of the " Thousand Buddhas' Shrine/ 1 a two- 
storied building, comprising a main pavilion and two projecting 
wings, all rudely constructed of rough pine, pillars and planking 
hewn without stint from the wealth of the neighbouring forest. 
The situation was delightful ; no other building in sight, and 
commanding from its front windows, which looked west, an 
uninterrupted view in fair weather of the Lolo range, the snowy 
peaks of Thibet, and all the intervening mountains. Its back 
was set against the edge of the precipice to the east, whence 
blows the wind the greater part of the year, and up which the 
mist was now rising rapidly in vast columns of smoke, envelop- 
ing the mountain, and from time to time hiding the view of 
everything over a yard or two distant We entered the guest- 
room and interviewed the chief priest, who, after the customary 
tea and inquiries, took us to a fairly large but very rough room 
in the south wing, with a window commanding an uninterrupted 
view over all the surrounding country — a most enviable spot in 
which to spend a fortnight en retraite. We sat down on the bare 
straw mattress of one of the four rough bedsteads, which 
comprised the furniture of the room, and commenced to talk 
business, when we found the old gentleman by no means so 
agreeable. " If we came to stay here we must bring no flesh 
food into the temple precincts, as the missionaries who had 
occupied this room two years before us had done," he said. 
" Certainly," we replied, " we are abstainers always when the 
guests of a Buddhist temple " — which was true, for neither of 
us cared for such meat as we might have had sent up to us 
from the city of Omi, apart from our not thinking it right to 
eat meat in a Buddhist temple where it really gave offence. 
Meantime we were congratulating ourselves on the charms of 
our coming residence, when, upon our informing the priest that 
we contemplated remaining ten days or a fortnight, he blandly 

F 



Digitized by 



Google 



82 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

replied : " Stay as long as you like ; you are yuen Ko (guests 
from afar) ; but the price will be one feng (fifty taels, equal to 
^10) whether you stay for a day or a month.' 9 This exorbitant 
charge (it must be remembered that we provided all our own 
food and paid for each meal of our servants) at almost the 
beginning of our journey quite took us aback ; but we were so 
pleased with the place and were so tired, and, to tell the truth, 
so anxious for breakfast and so loath to go back the two miles 
to the shabby-looking town we had passed on the summit, that 
we offered him twenty taels for ten days' stay, which we felt 
sure he must accept. It was all no use, "One feng! One 
feng I Nothing less!" was all we could get ou* of the old 
curmudgeon, and so we had to retreat re infectd. My belief is 
that previous Westerns had offended him or shocked his 
pilgrims, and that he had really made up his mind never to 
receive foreigners in his place again. Our Hankow coolie who 
was with us (we had left the others with our beds and loads at 
the summit proper there to wait the result of our negotiations) 
was most indignant on our behalf, and began to create such a 
disturbance that I had to put him outside and make him stop 
there. Ultimately there was nothing else to be done but to 
retrace our steps in the fog and trust to better luck at the more 
spacious Chin Ting. 

The largest of the temples on the summit as yet rebuilt is 
the " Golden Pavilion " (Chin Ting)— Ch'ih Ts'ze (" By Imperial 
Order and Bounty "), as is proudly inscribed on a tablet fit the 
entrance — the Imperial benefactor being the pious Wan Li of 
Ming fame (a.d. 1573 to 1620). Here, again, the priest began 
to raise objections, and, as by this time we were starving and 
foresaw a prolonged roUoquy, we cut the discussion short by 
ordering our coolies there and then to follow us with our 
things while we led the way to a small grove about half a mile 
off, where, much to the astonishment of the priests, we pro- 
ceeded to lay out our tiffin on the rocks, sending a man up to 
the temple to borrow hot-water for our teapot The sun 
pierced through the clouds and we thought we had never 
enjoyed a more delightful meal. "Here let us lie reclined" 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON THE SACRED MOUNTAIN'S SIDE 83 

and live on and make an eternal picnic in the pure mountain 
air, unsullied by Chinese surroundings, we said, and show' 
ourselves independent of priests and innkeepers alike ! And, 
had we had a tent we would have carried out our aspiration. 
But we had no tent and it came on to rain. The priests now 
took pity on us and offered us the shelter of the Chin Ting, 
where, after a long discussion, an agreement was come to with 
the tang-chia, the "business manager," a very agreeable '. 
mannered young priest, to rent two rooms for a fortnight for 
the sum of twenty taels (£4). For this we had a small room 
for ourselves, a larger one for our " boy " and cook and four 
coolies ; the terms included charcoal for the two braziers (at 
one of which our cooking was done) and all other amenities of 
the place. We, on our part, were not to kill any animals or 
bring up meat from the city of Omi which, together with fowls,, 
the offending missionaries had done two years before and so 
rendered the temples on the mountain shy of entertaining 
M foreigners/' chiefly, said the priest, from fear of offence being 
given to the other pilgrims. We were glad to be thus settled 
at last, although obliged to put up with a room in a dark corner 
and with no view. It would, indeed, be delightful to have a 
tent and pitch it where one liked, for the summer climate on 
Mount Omi is extraordinarily mild — ranging from about a 
minimum of 50 Fahrenheit by night to a day maximum 
of 70 — in July; while it is remarkable that this mountain 
summit, 10,500 feetabove sea-level, enjoys the " Lenium ventorum 
commodissimus flatus " of which Pliny tells us, and the freedom 
from gales which characterises the province generally. But it 
would require a stronger party than we were to insist upon 
camping out at their will, although, when once the lowlands 
are left behind, the space for pitching tents is unlimited, and 
one could have one's habitation far out of reach of that Chinese 
humanity which is, at times, so painfully obtrusive. As it was, 
we were not sorry to take our supper under a solid roof, and 
we retired to rest rejoicing that we were now really lodged on 
the famous mountain top, just three weeks and a day since we 
set out from the reeking city of Chungking. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER VI 

ON OMI'S SUMMIT 

Morning View — Mountain Sickness — Life in a Monastery— Precious 
Relics — Beautiful Fragments— Myriad Buddhas' Temple— Magnifi- 
cent Cloud Effects— Chinese District— Temple Rivalries— Deft 
Carpenters — Two Table Mountains — Clean Little Temple and 
Pleasing Priest — Erecting an Abbey — The Suicides' Precipice — 
Descending to Lei Tung Ping— Lamps of Mercy— Polite Begging — 
Glory of Buddha— Arrival of a Missionary — Panorama below us — 
Prognostications of Misfortune. 

July 31. — Arose before dawn, hoping that the sunrise might 
be again clear. Ascending to the mountain summit, immedi- 
ately under which the main building of the Chin Ting, in which 
we were lodged, is built, we go up a flight of about forty steps 
which lead to the temple in which is the image of Pusien on his 
elephant. This upper pavilion crowns the highest point of the 
mountain; its front towards the west overlooks the main 
building and faces the sea of mountains which intervene 
between it and the Thibetan plateau. Its back abuts on the 
great precipice, from the edge of which it is separated only by 
a narrow footway, protected by a low breastwork of piled rocks. 
This pavilion had also vacant rooms in its wings, and as there 
was, unlike our shut-in dwelling, a grand all-round view, we 
tried hard, but in vain, to be allowed to move into it. The red 
streaks of dawn were now commencing to illumine the eastern 
sky as we gazed over the sea of white cloud which washed up 
against the face of the cliff a few hundred feet below us. To 
the west the same sea spread away inimitably into the darkness 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMFS SUMMIT 85 

of night, the top of the cloud-piercing Omi with its summit 
temples standing out like a rocky islet in mid-ocean. But soon 
we turn from the dawn and pass quickly through the temple to 
the platform at its western door, and there a sight, such as 
we had never seen before, which will remain photographed 
upon our brains for ever after, met our enchanted gaze, a row 
of white peaks, tinted with the faintest shade of rose, stood up 
out of the billowy clouds like denizens of another world, so 
lofty and so far off that we could hardly believe they were real. 
Very gradually the clouds broke up : night's coverlet was 
slowly withdrawn as day came on, and the black heads of the 
intervening mountains peered out one after another above it. 
Meanwhile the snowy peaks which fringe the Thibetan plateau, 
80 miles or 100 miles distant, as yet unmeasured, but which 
may range anywhere from 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet, were 
growing more and more distinct, while fresh peaks were show- 
ing out in the north-west, some bare rosy-tinted rock masses, 
some black, with snowy peaks scattered here and there amongst 
them. These were to our extreme right. To our left, on the 
south-west, arose the precipitous range of the Lolo mountains, 
whose recesses — known as the " Terrace of the Sun/ 1 the home 
of the independent Lolos — no civilised man has yet ventured to 
penetrate. Facing thus, with our backs to the precipice, and 
still looking due west, we are now able to distinguish with our 
binocular the glaciers descending from the "cols" and 
continuing the white slopes far down below the snow limit. 
Behind one white mountain the priest by our side told us lies 
Ta Chien Lu, the wonder town of the Great West, the frontier 
city of Thibet, whence the wealth of Central Asia — furs, drugs, 
rhubarb, and musk— enters the province, by the only break in 
the magnificent white crenelated wall confronting us, north and 
south as far as the eye can reach. " Ten long days' journey 
over impossible paths," said the priest, as we questioned him 
as to how one could get there. And the snowy peaks looked 
so near, it was impossible to believe they were nearly 100 miles 
distant, as the crow flies. 



Digitized by 



Google 



86 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

August I. — Boiled the thermometer and made the height just 
16,500 feet, as against Babels 10,800 feet, but boiling in an open 
pot is, according to Whymper, not reliable. At any rate, this 
'first day, we all, and especially our coolies, felt some malaise 
from the elevation. These latter indeed took to their beds and 
remained curled up all day. We went for a walk down a rough 
path at the back of the mountain, through thick undergrowth to a 
pool, fed by a mountain burn, called Peh Lung Chih or "White 
Dragon" pool. A small boy accompanied us to point out 
the dragon. After turning over many stones in the water, he 
at last produced in triumph a small eft, the saurian, apparently, 
to which the pool owes its fame. Everything was shrouded in 
mist and without the boy guide we should hardly have found 
our way back to our temple. Here, in our small room, lit by a 
diminutive paper window, we looked out on a wall of damp 
rock, cut away to make room for the building, and warmed 
ourselves by the charcoal brazier kindly provided by the priest. 
Between the chinks in the roughly laid flooring, the fog, which 
was constantly blowing over the mountain, streamed up and 
tempered the dry heat from the fire. We passed the evenings 
reading Carlyle's Past and Present, and could not help being 
struck by the striking analogy between the state of affairs at 
St. Edmund's Bury in the fourteenth century and that in a 
Buddhist monastery in China to-day — the same rough simpli- 
city of life ; the same dependence on the character of the abbot 
for the prosperity of the institution ; the difference in manners 
of the individual monks ; some, ignorant peasant lads knowing 
nothing of the world beyond their own immediate surroundings ; 
others, men who had lived in the world as merchants or 
soldiers, had become disgusted with the outside life, shaved 
their heads and donned the monastic garb, spending the 
remainder of their lives in prayer and fasting; some, it is 
whispered, seeking in the monastery a refuge from crime and 
hoping to drown remorse in life-long penance. Our monastery 
seemed a remarkably well-ordered one and has the reputation 
of being rich. Its abbot, of whom we saw a good deal, was in 



\ 

Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMI^S SUMMIT 87 

the seventies, and he certainly impressed us as being a most 
holy man. We often saw him before dawn (we rose in the 
dark nearly every morning of our stay, hoping to catch the 
snowy mountains again before the inevitable mists swallowed 
them up) engaged at his solitary devotions before Pusien, at ) 
whose feet he would-be kneeling in darkness, just visible by the 
aid of a dim oil lamp. On the other hand, many of the monks 
of the neighbouring shrine seemed to be little better than 
opposition hotel touts, each vying with the other to see which 
could attract more offerings from the pilgrims, of whom one or 
two hundred daily came and departed. Many of these young 
priests were most rude and importunate, while at our Chin 
Ting the utmost order and decorum prevailed. Some of our 
priests had travelled throughout the eighteen provinces, 
begging their way from shrine to shrine ; nearly all had been 
to Pootoo, the sacred isle in the Nan Hai (Southern Sea), and 
so had passed through Shanghai and been, as they called it, to 
foreign countries, in which category Shanghai and Hongkong 
take rank in the eyes of the inland Chinese. 

August 2. — After a night of almost continuous thunder 
accompanied by torrential rain, we had a day of cold drizzle 
and did not wander far from the temple doors. We took our 
morning meal with a young priest, Sung-mow by name, whose 
special duty it is to entertain guests, and who gave us one of 
those well-cooked savoury vegetarian meals which, if anything 
could wean the confirmed beef-eater from the error of his ways, 
should tend to make a man abjure the savage habit of eating 
the flesh of innocent murdered victims for ever henceforth. 
Sung-mow then showed us the precious relics that had survived 
the fires that have proved so destructive to the antiquities of 
Omi. Of the great fire of two years ago, which totally destroyed 
the eleven summit temples, we have already spoken, but the 
most disastrous fire was that which occurred in the second 
year of the reign of the Ming Emperor, Cheng Hwa (a.d. 1466), 
an account of which is given in an inscription on a bronze 
tablet which now stands on the edge of the great cliff, whence 



Digitized by 



Google 



88 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

pilgrims look down on the " Glory of Buddha " in the sea of 
mist below. This inscription informs us how in the second 
year of Cheng Hwa the temple was destroyed by fire ; how this 
disaster was reported to the Emperor by the abbot, Liao-chan ; 
how the Emperor thereupon ordered the Viceroy of Szechuan 
to rebuild it at his (the Emperor's) cost ; and how in the tenth 
year of the reign it was completed — a unique building, from 
foundation to roof entirely of bronze. Then the inscription 
goes on to state — in the numerical languages as dear to the 
Chinese as it was to Pythagoras — that the mountain of Omi is 
famous throughout the world for its : 

Hundred Kan-tze (cornices)—!.*., precipitous ridges. 

Twelve big caverns. 

Twenty-eight small caves. 

Eighty bowls — P'an-tse (enclosed basin-like valleys). 

The mountain is one thousand It (300 miles) round. 

It opposes {tut) the Min Mountain. This is a most important 
function in a mountain : a plain or region that has mountains 
on one of its boundaries unopposed by any ridge or elevation 
in the opposite quarter, is open to all sorts of evil influences, 
which its ill-favoured inhabitants can but partially ward off by 
such palliatives as brick screens before their entrances, door- 
ways built askew, or engraved stones from the sacred Taishan, 
the holy mountain of Shantung. We see the truth of this in 
the calamitous inundations of the Yellow River country, a 
notoriously unscreened region, and in the destructive tornadoes 
in the unprotected provinces on the south-west coast. The in- 
scription finishes — " The temple is now restored better than 
ever before : the celebrity of the mountain is established for all 
time." 

Alas ! in the twenty-second year of Kia Tsing (a.d. 1544) the 
bronze temple was burnt. How this could have occurred is a 
mystery. Probably it was enclosed in a wooden structure to 
protect it from the weather, as has been done with the bronze 
image of Pusien on his elephant at Wan Nien Sze. At any 
rate, nothing is left now but fragments which have been piled 



Digitized by 



Google 




s 
o 



S 



^ .S 
•d 



a. 

c 



2 

O 



I 



J3 



Digitized by 



Google 



• ••• . v : > m :\S 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



ON OMFS SUMMIT 89 

up against the rocks at the back of the Chin Ting. These 
astonished us by their massiveness and exquisitive workmanship / 
— well shown in the photographs we succeeded in obtaining of 
a few pieces. Like all Chinese architecture, this temple, although 
constructed entirely of bronze, was modelled from the usual 
wooden building; panels fitted into a mortised framework. 
These panels are the size and shape of the ordinary folding 
doors that in winter protect the south or courtyard side of the 
K'o-tang, or Guest-hall of a Chinese House ; the lower panels 
are decorated with sprays of hawthorn, roses, peach-blossoms, 
etc., cast in relief and touched up with the chisel to delicate 
minuteness; the upper panels simulate the mortised tracery 
upon which the paper substitute for glass is usually pasted. 
Other panels were covered entirely with embossed " Buddhas." 
The bronze tiles are of the same shape and size as the ordinary 
rounded clay tile, and at the corners of the roof open-mouthed 
dragons take the place of gargoyles. The castings were made 
in Cheng Tu (the provincial capital), and it is a marvel how they 
were dragged up the mountain. Many of the fragments, I 
should judge, weighed half a ton. Although over four hundred 
years old, the pieces looked smooth and bright and the carvings 
as accurately defined as though made yesterday. Another 
notable monument is a small bronze pagoda, said to be 
1000 years old. (Tang dynasty, a.d. 618-923.) This too 
was cast in Cheng Tu, and apparently all in one piece ; it is 
covered with Buddhas in relief, sitting each on his lotus; a 
portion of one side is shining brass, made so by the devotion 
of pilgrims, who seldom fail, notably the women, to polish a cash 
on its surface and so become the happy possessors of an 
infallible charm. Similar defacement of the elephant's trunk 
has led to the erection of a heavy stone palisading as a pro- 
tection from too importunate worshippers. 

August 3. — Another day of cloud and drizzle ; thermometer 
49 in the morning, rising to 65 ° in the afternoon, when, for 
a brief interval, the sun half pierced the volumes of mist which 
appeared to surge up from the steaming plain below and roll 



Digitized by 



Google 



90 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

over the edge of the cliff and so westwards across the back of 
the mountain, shutting out everything at over 10 yards interval. 
Yet how we rejoice in the cool fresh atmosphere, and how we 
pitied our friends left behind sweltering in the Chungking sun. 
Here we were in our native clime ; just such weather as reminded 
us of a wet summer in England. We started out, and walked 
down and then up the steep path that follows the edge of 
the great precipice southwards to the Chien Fo Ting (the 
41 Thousand Buddhas' Pavilion "), at which we met with scant 
politeness on the occasion of our first visit. From the pinnacle 
upon which this isolated, wildly situated temple stands, a more 
distant peak is visible upon which stands another similarly 
situated temple, known as the Wan Fo Ting, or "Myriad 
Buddhas' Temple." This is a comparatively recent erection, 
and it would almost look as though an ambitious priest had 
built it to compete for pilgrims' favour with the "Thousand 
Buddhas." This latter is quite a modern institution and the 
number of its worshippers is limited. For when the poor 
pilgrims have toiled up to the summit from Omi city, 120 U in 
distance and 10,000 feet in height, in a single day, as most of 
them do, they must be energetic and devout indeed who, having 
once worshipped on the summit proper, would cross another 
steep valley and on the same day make the further ascent to 
the " Thousand Buddhas." Yet this cross has been laid upon 
them, and all who can feel it their duty to take it up. Now, 
as if this were not enough, a priest has given the means to 
additional merit by building his shrine of the " Myriad Buddhas " 
on the summit of a third and far distant peak. We determined 
to walk on thither, but although our toil that day had been 
practically nil, we found it to be a troublesome climb, and but 
for the encouragement afforded us by two pilgrims who preceded 
us and showed us the way through the steep jungle path, we 
should hardly have persevered as we did. The jungle consisted 
chiefly of loquat, rhododendron, arbutus, and dwarf bamboo, 
with many thistles and briars. A path had been cut through 
it up the steep hill, but was being rapidly overgrown, the 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMI'S SUMMIT 91 

temple, as we found on reaching it, being closed and 
unoccupied. 

August 4. — Thick clouds all day. Took a photograph of the 
abbot, and waited in vain with the camera for a rift in the clouds 
to enable us to take a view of the peak on which stands the 
" Thousand Buddhas." Consulted with priests as to moving to 
a more cheerful spot; thought we would try the Chiu Lau 
Tung ("Cave of the Nine Worthies "), in the beautiful side valley, 
the entrance to which we had passed coming up at Lien Hwa 
Shih. Our priest told us that we should be well treated at 
this temple which was under our abbot, and so a properly 
conducted establishment. There we should be below the clouds 
and in a milder climate, at 6000 feet elevation only. In the 
afternoon the sun came out for a few minutes; the clouds 
descended to about 200 feet below our summit, which stood out 
like an island in an Arctic sea, piled up clouds in the distance 
simulating gigantic icebergs. But the mist quickly rose again 
and drove us back shivering to our dimly lighted room and its 
charcoal fire. 

August 5. — Torrential rain all night and Scotch mist all day, 
till at 4 p.m. the island we were on slowly rose out of the sea 
for 1000 feet or more, and disclosed the most magnificent 
cloud effects we had yet witnessed. The setting sun illumi- 
nated with a pink tinge the curling billows to the west, and cast 
a perfect shadow of the mountain on the white table-cloth 
which shrouded the Kiating plain and the Yangtze valley in the 
east We descended 1000 steps to the " Gate of Heaven " and 
thence on to the Pusien Ta (Pusien's Dagoba), in which is 
enthroned the heavily gilded corpse of its former octogenarian 
abbot. The fortunate glimpse of sunshine gave us enough 
light in the dark recesses of the temple to secure a good picture 
of this venerable curio. And we noted the contrast between 
the man-made figure of the canonised hero behind with its 
absolutely stolid haughty air, and the patient, mild, Vicar 
of Wakefield-like face of the God-made saint below, the little 
droop of the upper lip where a tooth had accidentally fallen 



Digitized by 



Google 



92 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

out, and the other ravages of time, together with the little 
touching indication to a holy life led in trust upon One higher. 
Then we turned " home/ 9 less discontented with Omi's summit 
than we had been yesterday, after four days and nights of 
constant rain. 

The Wan Fo Sze, or "Myriad Buddhas'Temple," had exercised 
the ingenuity of some distich writer, whose antithetical couplet 
adorning the two portals we thought worth transcribing. Each 
line of the couplet commences with one of the two words 
forming the title of the shrine— " Myriad " and "Buddha"— 
the two lines form a perfect parallel and the meaning is deep, 
not to say recondite ; here they are : 

Wan sze f wu sze, ho you sze ? 
Fo fah, you fah, yi wu /ah. 
which I would venture to render : 

Why toil in endless business ? All business is but nil. 
What need ye Buddha's myriad laws, if ye his law fulfil ? 
recalling to mind Lao-tse's — u The more laws, the worse the 
people " (that have the need of them). Chinese philosophers 
have reflected deeply on these matters, and influenced the 
thoughts and conduct of their countrymen to a far-reaching 
extent, affecting the daily life of the Chinamen as persistently 
as (imperceptibly or openly) do Christian ethics the lives of us 
Westerns. 

August 6. — The disastrous fire of 1890 originated in the 
large establishment (now rebuilding) immediately south of our 
Chin Ting, known as the Kai Shan Tsu Tien, or " Opening the 
Mountain Original Palace." An inscription states that when, in 
the Eastern Han period (a.d. 25-87), the mountain was first 
opened up, and Pusien's retreat discovered, this was the temple 
built. It possesses an image of Pusien on his elephant in bronze, 
which its priests claim to be older than the more celebrated 
monument at Wan Nien Sze. But this statement may be only 
one of many devised to attract. It also has its separate summit 
pavilion (including a special view of the " Lamps of Mercy," as 
the will-o'-the-wisps, often seen at night in the Kiating plain 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMrS SUMMIT 93 

below, are called), and on the door I noticed a placard : " Come 
and burn incense here ; this is the true original Pusien." This 
business jealousy between the rival temples has been farther 
sharpened by the Chin Ting having accused the Tsu Tien of 
causing the fire, and a law-suit is still in progress at the capital 
to decide the question. These two, as well as the other 
summit temples, are further quarrelling about the timber from 
the adjoining forests which are being ransacked for the nume- 
rous huge pillars of wood needed in their reconstruction. 
Gangs of carpenters from the city of Hung Ya, 50 miles away 
on the northern foot of the mountain, were quartered in big 
outbuildings erected for their accommodation, receiving their 
food from the priests, and wages of about threepence a day in 
addition. They were good workmen, and toiled hard from 
dawn to dusk, as is the Chinese custom, with apparently no 
superintendence. We were never tired of watching the deft 
way in which they were chiselling the elegant mortised lattice 
work and carvings for windows and panels, each workman, 
apparently, working original designs out of his head without 
any patterns ; but really from memory. The same wages 
seemed to rule for all, skilled and unskilled — if, indeed, there 
were any of the latter. Many of the priests were aiding in the 
work, especially the decorative portions. 

A beautiful starlight night was followed by a clear sunrise, 
and for the second time we enjoyed the sublime prospect of the 
panorama of snowy mountains which encircle Omi like a guard, 
on the north and west. The intervening ranges were wonder- 
fully distinct, their precipitous walls, which all seem to face 
this way, standing out distinct in the light of the eastern sun. 
Two extraordinary mountains in the middle distance particu- 
larly arrested our attention, of about the same height as Omi, 
they were remarkable for their flat summits and wall sides ; 
both were called Wa Shan, meaning roof, or house mountain, 
and both were said to be sacred and to be adorned with temples. 
The one to our right bore west by north and lay in the direction 
of Hung Ya ; was four days distant by a practicable path, but 



Digitized by 



Google 



94 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

one on which no food was obtainable; that to the left bore 
south-west by west, and could only be reached by returning to 
the city of Omi and there taking a road which led round the 
eastern and southern faces of Omi itself. As we had no desire 
to venture again into the hot plain and traverse the notoriously 
unhealthy valleys that lead round the foot of Omi's stupendous 
cliffs (where Hosie and his party sickened with fever eight 
years before), we inquired whether it was not possible to walk 
there direct, going down the back of the mountain. Impos- 
sible t To go down the western slope you would have to tra- 
verse the Laolin or wilderness, which is impassable; so we 
abandoned the idea and spent the rest of the morning in trying 
to find out which of these two strange mountains was the real 
Wa Shan, and which was the better worth visiting. Meanwhile 
at 6.30 the scene faded away, and no more mountains, except 
our own little knoll, were seen that day ; but the two hours that 
had passed were worth the whole trouble of the journey from 
Chungking and back. 

In the afternoon, when the chilly fog without drove us back 
to our brazier, and Sung^mow came in for his usual chat, we 
discussed with him the practicability of our going on to Ta 
Chien Lu, for we had been fired with the ambition to reach it 
as soon as we first caught sight of its protecting snowy moun- 
tain. Impossible again : four days of terribly hot valleys and 
then seven of precipitous mountain ; five passes, some higher 
than Omi; and, final crusher, no food obtainable on the way ; 
so this project was dismissed almost as soon as formed. 

August 7. — Another fine sunrise ; one more unrolling of the 
glorious panorama which, we believe, for variety has not its 
equal in the world, and again the mists closed in upon us. We 
went in and wrote our home mail, sending afterwards one of 
our coolies in to Kiating (three days' journey) with the letters, 
there to be handed over to the native post for delivery to our 
representatives in Chungking. In the afternoon we took a 
walk in the fog along a woodcutters' path, leading southwards 
past the foot of the pinnacle on which stands the " Thousand 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMFS SUMMIT 95 

Buddhas' Temple." Here a little used and secluded path 
brought us to a small clearing, in which was a potato-patch 
and a modest one-storied temple, indistinguishable in appear- 
ance from a neat farm-house, the Ming Yueh Ngan, or " Full 
Moon Monastery." There appeared to be no one there, but 
the door was ajar, and we walked in ; a neat altar, with the 
usual curtained shrine of Amita Buddha, occupied the main 
hall, with sleeping-rooms and kitchen on either side. We were 
struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the place, small and 
poor though it was. While we were thus looking about, and 
thinking that this would be an ideal cottage in which to rusticate 
during the hot months, the proprietor, a young, lively, and 
pleasant-looking priest, returned. He had a sack of millet 
across his shoulders, which he had that day brought up for his 
sustenance from Omi city, 120 li (40 miles) distant After 
some conversation, we found that he had visited both the 
Wa Shan, and from him we now at last acquired an intelligible 
description of these two famous "roof" mountains : the one 
to our right, in the district of Hungya, was the true Wa Shan, 
and covered with temples — now, however, much neglected, 
many deserted, and in ruins. That to our left, though called 
also Wa Shan, its square shape, is properly the Sai King 
Shan, or " Dry Classics Mountain," for did not Pusien, after 
his arduous journey across the then pathless mountains from 
India, here spread out the sacred books which he brought with 
him on his elephant, and which had got damaged in his long 
tramp by the rain and snow, to dry ? As to our going there 
direct by the by-paths through the wilderness, this was possible 
to mountaineers like himself, but he doubted if we could 
manage it. We must have a good guide, be prepared to walk 
six days, 90 li a day, carry our food with us, and not mind 
getting wet through, both above (from the rain and the wet jungle 
through which we should have to force our way) and below 
(from the streams we should have to ford). On the other 
hand, to go round by Omi city, whence he had come that day, 
we should have to traverse the heated valleys at the foot of 



Digitized by 



Google 



96 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the mountain and expose ourselves to the cholera, of which 
thousands were dying daily. We took leave of the young 
priest, thanking him for his information, and determined at 
once to make arrangements for a start through the wilderness. 
August 8. — Another fine dawn ; a sea of white fleecy clouds 
hiding all the broken country to the east, out of which the sun 
rose, again lighting up for our intense enjoyment the magnifi- 
cent ranges of mountains stretching away to the snowy 
guardians of the great Thibetan plateau beyond. Our early 
coffee was not yet ready when the driving mist rolling up the 
cliff drove us back to our room. We had another day of cloud 
and drizzle, with grand storms of lightning and thunder below 
us. We strolled about in the neighbourhood, watching the 
active building operations going on around us. To the extreme 
left of the small summit plateau is the spot where, before the 
fire, stood the Wu Yun Ngam, or " Reclining on the Clouds 
Abbey," the southernmost of the seven summit temples. Here 
the framework of the new building had been in active progress 
all the time of our stay. Massive pillars were mortised 
together as they lay on the ground in situ, the circular stones 
which serve as foundations, and to raise the wooden pillars of 
Chinese buildings off the ground and out of the damp, were all 
ready in position at the foot of the pillars as these lay on the 
ground ready for erection. The heavy, squared timber joists, 
which connect each row of pillars and upon which the roof 
proper is subsequently built up, had all been fitted in, each 
division of the external walls being thus complete in its 
framework, and only wanting the ring of exterior connecting 
beams for the building to be finally complete — all but the 
ultimate filling in of light brick or lath and plaster which furnish 
the walls, internal and external, of cottage and palace alike 
throughout the length and breadth of the Empire. The sole 
erection so far was a wooden tower right in the centre, which 
we at first took to be a novel and decidedly striking architectural 
feature in Chinese buildings. Upon nearing the spot and 
watching the animated ant-like commotion going on among the 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMFS SUMMIT 97 

hundreds of assembled priests and workmen, it became evident 
that no ordinary work was under way. What had seemed to 
us the extremely leisurely progress of the preceding weeks was 
now shown to have been the steady methodical preparation for 
to-day's culminating stroke. Like the launching of a great 
ship, gradually built up on the stocks, the Wo Yun Ngan had 
been slowly progressing towards completion, almost imper- 
ceptibly and unnoticed. The tower, as its four floors became 
crowded with men, in long blue gowns, turned out to be a 
huge four-storied windlass ; and now, as the capstan bars were 
inserted in the central pillar, the ropes, attaching it to the 
framing lying on the ground on each side, began to taughten 
up ; and, as they did so, crowds of men drove wedges under 
the further ends of the framings themselves which lay on the 
ground; with a great shout, which greeted the first signs of 
motion in the cumbrous heap of woodwork, the men redoubled 
their exertions until they at last got the frames raised sufficiently 
to enable beams of wood, smartly pushed under, to take the 
place of the wedges. Then a short rest and a smoke, after which 
all went to work again in the same way and another few inches 
were gained So it went on all day, the work becoming easier, 
of course, as the angle between the framings and the windlass 
diminished. By evening the whole was up, and there, where 
in the morning was nothing but a plot of long grass and weeds 
with what looked like a lot of smoothed logs scattered through 
it, suddenly arose the great temple of Wo Yun Ngan, with 
nothing wanting but its tiled roof and the filling in of the walls. 
The arrangement of the work so that the strain on the windlass 
is balanced by coming on two sides simultaneously, struck us 
as highly practical : all danger of straining the shaft or breaking 
it, as occurs at times in heaving up an anchor on board ship, 
being in this manner avoided. 

August 9. — All night incessant thunder, lightning, and heavy 
rain. It held up for awhile, however, in the early morn, and 
we at once stepped up to the summit behind our residence. 
The great precipice stood out clear for once, and we were 

G 



Digitized by 



Google 



98 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

enabled, looking over the perilous brink, to form some idea of 
its height and extent. The few yards at the edge, along which 
runs a narrow path at the back of the temples, the so-called 
Suicides' Cliff, are railed in with iron posts and chains. This 
portion of the precipice seems really to overhang, and the view 
from it descends sheer into the Kiating " plain," 9000 feet 
below. For some miles to the right, and for a mile or more to 
the left, one walks through the long grass and wild-flowers that 
grow right up to the brink, entirely unprotected, and one has to 
get used to the place before daring to crane one's neck over the 
edge. Then we see that the sheer fall varies from 3000 to 
5000 feet below, which are inaccessible rugged slopes, and then 
again more cliffs. On one of these ledges is pointed out the 
remains of a Taoist hermit who perished there. Looking through 
the telescope we could indeed distinguish what looked like a 
bundle of old clothes, as also the staff of the holy man, and, 
judging by what we had seen of ascetic enthusiasts in other 
spots, living in almost inaccessible niches, and dependent on 
food let down to them by the charitable or handed up from 
below, we can well believe the tale. Some of these living 
skeletons will exist for a year on hard cold rice, less than would 
keep an ordinary man alive for a month. The Chinese are not 
all apathetic materialists. After this stroll on the top we 
determined to go for a long walk, which, of course, we can only 
do in one direction — viz., down (much as a man who should 
once reach the North Pole could only go south), and as the long 
grass was soaked we chose the only practicable path, the one by 
which we had come up ! This we descended as far as Lei Tung 
Ping (Thunder Cave Flat), 1300 feet below, the fog now entirely 
shutting out what otherwise should have been a series of 
magnificent views. We tiffined en route in the rain, preferring 
the fresh air to the ruinous temple, in which, however, we after- 
wards drank tea and smoked a pipe to gratify the old priest and 
afford an opportunity of presenting him with the welcome string 
of cash, which he seemed sorely to need. Thunder Cave 
Temple is situated in a gap on the crest of a ridge which falls 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMFS SUMMIT 99 

away on both sides in magnificent precipices, a glimpse of which 
was barely seen at intervals as we sat on, waiting for the mists 
to allow us to photograph. The weather cleared sufficiently 
in the afternoon to enable us to take a view of the building 
itself, with the priest sitting on the steps in the court-yard, but 
nothing beyond. As for the building, it is of unpainted pine- 
wood, it is two-storeyed, has a roof of thatch, and surrounds 
three sides of a court-yard of about 50 feet square, the 
fourth side being formed by the terrace and the flight of 
stone steps leading up to it. The arrangement is the same 
as in all, the main building ft containing the principal images 
and shrines, and the two wings the dwellings of the priests 
and the needful offices. The painting and gilding of the 
shrines were old and worn, and the whole had a decayed 
appearance, very different from the air of smartness which 
strikes one in the wealthy temples of the summit. I fear the 
Buddha of Thunder Cave is not reputed ling (efficacious), and 
so misses the golden, or rather copper, shower of offerings that 
go to enrich other more popular shrines, while the pilgrims 
pass this over. From Lei Tung Ping up to Tai Tze Ping 
is an ascent of 1000 feet, up 3000 steep stone steps. As 
A. was suffering much from difficulty of breathing owing to 
the elevation, we bargained with a coolie to carry her up in 
his peitze (a basket of bamboo carried on the back and 
attached by straps of bamboo passing round the shoulders in 
front, a pleasing substitute for the carrying pole of the plains), 
for 200 cash. Thence 1800 steps more took us to the 
summit. On our way up we stopped at the Chen Hiang Ta, or 
"Tower of Fragrant Fossil-wood," whence a winding path 
through the fir trees leads to a projecting natural platform of 
rock overhanging the cliff. On arriving at this elevated perch, 
we found nearly all the available standing space occupied by a 
party of pilgrims, men and women, about half a dozen, squatted 
on the rock awaiting patiently the coming of the " Glory of 
Buddha," which can be seen from this spot. One man was 
lying down smoking his opium pipe, soothing his nerves so as 



Digitized by 



Google 



ioo MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

to enable him to gaze down over the edge of the abyss without 
shuddering. But the clouds were inexorable, so we trudged 
up the remaining 1 300 steps, passing through the "Celestial 
Gate " and refusing many pressing invitations to stop and shwa 
at the various temples en route. To-night after supper, we 
were summoned to walk up to the summit and look over the 
edge of the cliff. The clouds had sunk, the stars shone clear 
in the sky overhead, while, some hundreds of feet below, the 
white surface of the clouds spread out in the distance as far as 
the eye could reach. Dotted amongst the clouds, almost as 
thickly as the stars above, were what looked like shining lamps 
of extraordinary brilliancy ; these were Kwan Yin Ttag, or 
" Lamps of Mercy," as the Chinese call them ; otherwise the 
lamps of Kiating city coming up to Omi to be lit It was a 
striking spectacle both from the extent and from the persistency 
of the lights ; they might have been the camp-fires of a huge 
army bivouacking on the mountain side, suggesting the army 
of Christian envoys, now over-running Szechuan, besieging 
Buddhism in its last stronghold. I never should have 
imagined that will-o'-the-wisps, if such they be, could have 
shone forth with such striking brilliance. We gazed long 
until at last the cold drove us in. I have since regretted that 
we did not wait and time the duration of the phenomenon, 
which is probably electric. We came in and arranged for two 
of our coolies to start at daybreak for Omi Hsien to notify the 
magistrate of our intended departure and to buy some 
warm clothing for our followers, whose dread of penetrating 
farther into the mountains we had to do all we could to 
mitigate. 

August 10. — Another night of lightning, thunder, and pouring 
rain; in the morning the trench excavated round our temple 
for drainage was overflowing, and the paths down the hill were 
converted into good-sized rivulets. We packed up the things 
we purposed carrying with us on our tramp and despatched 
the remainder down to Wan Nien Sze, there to await our 
return. We went for a walk in the rain and concluded we had 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMI'S SUMMIT 101 

had enough of Omi, although we were grateful to the sacred 
mountain for the benefit which our stay on its summit had been* 
to our health on arrival. We were both, what in China is called* 
somewhat "run down/' and we had now picked up our 
strength and were, thanks to Omi, fit for a walking tour, such' 
as we should have regarded as an absurdity a couple of weeks- 
before. We came back to dine with the venerable abbot in the 
guest-room decorated for the occasion, but which, having been 
shut up for some time before, chilled us to the marrow of the 
bones, while the thick mist from outside came rolling in and 
made us anxious for the tedious preliminaries which precede a 
Chinese feast to come to an end and the serious business of 
attacking the warm food to begin. We knew, too, that the 
dinner was a prelude to another attack on our generosity, but : 
when the meal was over we stuck firm to our promised twenty 
taels, to which we duly set our names in the Yuan-pu, engaging 
to give more next year if our business at Chungking should 
prosper. We were hard pressed to provide a corrugated iron 
roof, such as our friend Sung-mow had seen in his travels in 
foreign parts (Shanghai), and so save the temple from the 
danger of its present shingle roof, and at the same time hand 
our names down to posterity as benefactors of the most 
holy spot between the Four Seas. Here is an opportunity for 
some of our readers ! Shortly before sunset the weather 
cleared and we were told the "Glory of Buddha" — the 
grand phenomenon of the sacred mountain — would be visible. 
We hurried up to the top of k the cliff and looked over. Below 
was a sea of cloud ; at our backs the sun, now shortly about 
to sink in the west, was brightly shining. Sure enough, there 
was a circular halo reposing on the cloud surface, its bottom 
just cut off by the shadow of the mountain's edge, so that the 
rainbow (for such it apparently is, having all its colours) shorn 
of a portion of its circumference, appeared of a horse-shoe 
shape, and in its centre was the greatly magnified shadow of 
the observer's head. The fortunate pilgrims who had made the 
ascent to-day were in ecstacies at their good fortune and 



Digitized by 



Google 



102 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

awe-struck at the divine manifestation ; they threw themselves 
prostrate and prayed in silence — a word spoken being supposed 
to drive away the . manifestation. They fail to perceive that 
the Buddha is their own shadow, although we proved the fact 
by waving our arms, when the shadow responded, each 
spectator, as with the rainbow proper, being the centre of his 
own halo. It was a striking spectacle, more from the fervour 
of the worshippers than from the phenomenon itself. Even 
the flippant young priest who dispensed pardons at 40 cash 
apiece in the upper pavilion of the Chin Ting, was, for the first 
time we had so seen him, awed into a reverend demeanour. 
As the sun sank and the shadow of the mountain prolonged 
itself athwart the white table-cloth spread out at our feet, the 
phenomenon subsided and the crowd melted away silently to 
their various lodging-places in the surrounding temples ; we 
ourselves well satisfied that our ten days' expectancy had been 
rewarded by the sight of this, the crowning glory of the famous 
mountain. I must add that my wife, who was never tired of 
hanging over the great precipice, saw this spectacle many times, 
and each day she said with greater admiration. A " Litany ! " 
chanted by a full chorus of priests, closed a not uneventful 
day. 

August 11. — Another day of heavy rain. One of the China 
Inland missionaries from Kiating arrived at the Chin Ting to 
claim the hospitality of the priests for a couple of days ; he 
reported the heat and closeness down below, under the cloud- 
curtain, almost insupportable and the cholera still raging 
terribly ; 30,000 persons had already died at Cheng Tu, among 
the dead being two English missionaries. He was provided 
with books, printed at the expense of well-meaning philanthro- 
pists at home, pointing out to the unfortunate heathen the 
errors of their ways. It is always a matter of astonishment to 
me to see how politely the Chinese receive these kind attentions. 
Fancy a Buddhist priest "itinerating" through eastern Europe 
(let us say) and putting up at a monastery of the Greek or Roman 
church, and there pointing out to the misguided inhabitants the 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMI'S SUMMIT 103 

folly and grossness of their superstitions. But I will not touch 
further on the thorny question of foreign missions except to 
express my conviction that in as far as any religion seriously 
believed in supplies a motive for conduct, the upsetting or 
even questioning the truth of that religion leads to an unsettle- 
ment of principle which can have anything but a beneficial 
result — in this world at least — unless the hearer can be 
established in the new Faith with its different ethics. Our 
coolies were evidently detained by the rain, and we were unable 
to arrange for our start at daylight in the morning as we had 
intended to do ; but one day's delay is nothing in China. 

August 12. — Went out at five and on to the summit platform. 
The sky was clear overhead, but nothing but a mass of calm 
clouds visible, out of which, in the west, projected the heads 
of the Wa Shan, the Sai King Shan, and the Ta Liang Shan, 
the rugged serrated peaks of the latter, the home of the 
unconquered Lolos, showing to perfection in the sunshine ; the 
snowy mountains were invisible. After our early breakfast, the 
clouds rose and deluged us again with their rain as we climbed 
the slippery path that runs up and down by the edge of the 
great precipice to the Chien Fo Ting, the temple in which we 
had originally hoped to reside. We took shelter with the 
churlish priest, who, however, was very polite on this occasion 
and extended his hospitality, in the shape of a cup of tea, to 
our missionary companion. Shortly before sunset the sky 
cleared completely for an interval of about five minutes, and 
afforded us one of the grandest views we had ever looked 
down upon. Standing on the edge of the great cliff, the 
whole of the country to the east was spread out like a map, 
10,000 feet below us. I have called it the plain of Kiating, 
and so it appears from this elevation, and is, indeed, in com- 
parison with the illimitable western mountains which have their 
beginning at Omi. The broken and precipitous ranges up and 
down which we had travelled on our way hither from Chungking 
rarely rise more than a few hundred feet above the general 
level, the gentle waves of a red sandstone sea that breaks at 



Digitized by 



Google 



104 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the foot of Omi's gigantic precipice, in comparison with which 
they may be well called the plain, which from this height they 
appear to the eye to be. Through it winds the great Yangtze 
river, now at its highest summer flood. We can trace it to 
Suifu, nearly ioo miles distant as the crow flies, where takes 
place the junction of the two main branches of the great river — 
according to the Chinese the main river which sweeps past the 
city of Kiating at our feet, the Min, and the river of Yunnan, 
as that which European geographers designate as the main 
branch, is locally denominated. The body of water in the two 
branches is about the same, varying in volume according to 
the different seasons ; but the latter is undoubtedly the main 
river, if length be the standard. It ceases, however, to be 
navigable not far above the junction, while the Min is navigable 
almost to its source. This river, together with its affluents, 
the Ya and the Tung, was now in flood, and the course of all 
three rivers was distinctly visible from our point of vantage* 
The Ya coming from behind our left — the north side of Omi — 
and the Tung on our right, or south, had both overflowed their 
bounds and large tracts of water appeared to meander amidst 
banks of dark green foliage. The two walled cities of Omi 
and Kiating were distinguishable with the glass, as were the 
windings of the Min as far as Suifu. The rain set in again 
while we were looking at the map-like panorama and did not 
promise well for our contemplated start in the morning. But 
returning to the temple we found our coolies back from Omi 
Hsien, guides engaged, and everything ready for our departure. 
Two tingchai or yamen runners had been sent up by the 
magistrate to take charge of our safety, and two more ragged 
disreputable-looking ruffians it would have been hard to select. 
They turned out, however, to be better than their looks, and we 
found them willing and obliging companions in our subsequent 
travels. 

Whether prompted by these gentlemen, who certainly seemed 
ill-equipped for the undertaking, or whether out of a real regard 
for our comfort, the priests this evening did all in their power 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON OMTS SUMMIT 105 

to dissuade us at the last moment from carrying out our project. 
If we were really determined to go, our only plan was to retrace 
our steps to the city of Omi and there take the main road 
round the foot of the mountain ; this would only take us two 
days longer, even if we did our 90 U a day through the wilder- 
ness, but we should never do this — indeed, we should never 
get through at all ; there was only the tracing of a seldom used 
path, and this, after leaving the pine forest, was cut for miles 
through a bamboo jungle. The sharp stems of the bamboo, cut 
to spear-like points, would impale us if we fell, as we were 
bound to do on the steep ground, made additionally slippery by 
the continuous rains; the streams would not be formidable; 
there were no inhabitants ; and if we failed to do our 90 it by 
nightfall we should have to camp on the wet ground and be 
eaten up by the wild beasts. They seemed fully as grieved as 
were undoubtedly our coolies when they found it impossible to 
make us change our minds. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER VII 

THROUGH THE WILDERNESS AND BY THE TUNG RIVER 

Early start— Down 3000 feet— Through the Wilderness — Romantic 
Goddess of Mercy River— At the Thieves' Rest— Green Snake— Wild 
Boars— Strings of Salt Porters— Exhausted by Heat— Thanks to a 
Taoist Mine— Ta Wei— Plucky Pony I— Extraordinary Steepness- 
Wild Mountain Inn — Once more the Tung River — Home of the 
Independent Lolo— Golden Gate Village — Coming from the Play — 
Almost Impossible Inn-r-Rapid Rise and Fall of Rivers. 

August 13. — We were favoured with a fine morning for our 
start which we managed to effect by half-past six, the loads 
having been weighed and apportioned, seventy-five pounds to 
each man, of whom we had eight, carrying our bedding, food, 
cash, and spare clothing, as well as rice for themselves. Our 
Hankow " boy " and coolie, the latter acting as cook, followed 
empty-handed, while the two tingchai brought up the rear with 
the camera and its stand. One of our coolies, an old soldier 
who had fought in the Lolo country, had armed himself with a 
sword, and I yielded to their earnest solicitations and inspired 
confidence by strapping my revolver round my waist. We 
thus set out, fourteen of us in single file, down the wood- 
cutters' path which we had already traversed as far as the 
" White Dragon's " pool a few days before. From here on we 
entered Laoltn, the first virgin forest we had traversed in 
China. Stumbling over fallen trees, down rocky beds of 
mountain streams, the invisible trail led on. Everything was 
dripping with moisture; it became warmer as we rapidly 
descended; there was not a breath of air, and the thermometer 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 107 

stood at 8o°. We got wet through from within and without — 
besides from above and below as the priests had told us. In 
many places the spongy moss was a foot thick, and a thin 
mossy growth covered the sloping rocks and made them as 
slippery as ice; our porters had many falls, and cursed the 
Ming Yueh Ngan priest who had led us to choose this road. 
After three hours of really hard work we came to the belt of 
wild bamboo through which a narrow trail had indeed been 
cut, but not wide enough to obviate our having to push the stems 
aside at every step, the overarching branches deluging us with 
showers of water. The path here, though going up and down, ' 
turned southwards on a gentle incline, to contrast with our 
previous almost vertical descent. We longed for the open as 
ardently as Stanley in Darkest Africa, and kept on asking our 
guide: How many /*' more? At last the growth became 
thinner, we got a sight of the sky and the wide valley into 
which we were descending. This was covered with jungle, 
uncultivated and uninhabited. At length we reached an 
isolated cottage called Ming Seng Chang, or the "Bright 
Enclosure," so called from its being the site of some 
ancient ironworks from which came the iron tiles with 
which some of the temples on Omi are still roofed; but 
mining has long ago been prohibited on the slopes of the 
sacred mountain, and such metal tiles as the temples can 
still afford are made of zinc from Cheng Tu. Here the tiffin 
was quickly spread, our coolies by this time being adepts 
in taking possession of a cottage, sweeping it out, rubbing down 
the one table, and upon it spreading our white table-cloth, 
while the owners stand round helpless in open-mouthed 
astonishment. Meanwhile the cook has got his charcoal fenglu 
(furnace) under way, we boiled our thermometer, which the 
peasants are always much disappointed that we do not after- 
wards eat, and sat down to a most enjoyable repast ; but we 
dared not linger as we had yet 50 U to make good before night- 
fall. We found we had descended just 3000 feet. It was a 
most brilliant day, and we were all in high spirits at having 



Digitized by 



Google 



io8 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

successfully traversed the first stage of the terrible Lao/in- 
Omi's summit towered above us with a white cloud cap on its 
head, but all around the sky was radiant blue, such as we had 
not seen it for two months past. An exquisitely fresh air 
swept up the valley, uncontaminated with paddy-fields or 
human habitations, tempering the warm but pleasant sunshine. 
Here, we said, we have at last found the ideal spot for a summer 
outing. We trudged on down the valley by a narrow path, 
following the course of a small burn which became a fair-sized 
river on the morrow, sometimes wading across it, at others 
climbing high up its side to avoid a precipitious gorge where 
the water was too swift and deep for wading. We passed a 
few isolated cottages, where the jungle was being burnt for the 
manufacture of soda or potash (chien), but otherwise met no 
one. After a few miles the valley narrowed to a gorge about 
5 feet in width, through which the stream now swollen into a 
torrent, forced its way between two magnificent lime-stone 
walls. Just above the gorge, at a spot called Hei Tao Pa 
("Walnut Tree Bank"), we had to cross a wide ford, which delayed 
us some time, the laden coolies helping each other with their 
loads. Taking off our foot gear to keep it dry we waded 
across, stumbling amongst the rough boulders in the rapid 
water. Hence we ascended an almost perpendicular path some 
500 feet up, and then came rapidly down through an ever- 
widening valley, with steep limestone cliffs on either side, to a 
point where an affluent from the west (our course was south) 
came in, the united stream from this spot being known as the 
Kuan Yin Ho, or " Goddess of Mercy River." This affluent 
came down through a most beautiful and romantic valley which 
we longed to explore : lofty cloud-capped mountains, wild and 
grand-looking, bordered'the valley which led, we were told, to the 
home of the wild cattle (ngai niu f lit. precipice ox), for which 
these mountains are famous : they also are inhabited by tigers, 
white bears, wolves, foxes, monkeys, and musk-deer. An iron 
suspension bridge here crosses the torrent, guarded by a small 
temple dedicated to Kuan Yin ; this, to our regret, for we were 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 109 

tired out and had hoped for a cup of tea, was untenanted, and i 
it was already past four. We now ascended again and, after a 
few miles, came to another gorge along the east side of which 
a narrow slippery path, cut out of the solid rock some 500 feet 
above the torrent, led us once more into cultivated country and 
civilisation. The path now became a good one of the Chinese kind, 
and skirting several delightfully situated hamlets embosomed 
in hoangko, walnut, acacia, and bamboo, we reached the village 
of Lei Shih Kou (" Thunder Rock Mouth " — *.*., entrance), just 
as it was getting too dark to see our way. Our destination was 
properly the small town of Lung Ch'ih (" Dragon Pool "), three 
miles further, but even if we could have found our way over the 
intervening pass in the dark, we were only too glad to rest 
outside a town rather than in one. Our " boy," of course, 
declared against the possibility of risking our lives in such a 
thieves' den (as reads the Chinese nick-name), and actually went ' 
on with one porter expecting us to follow. But we were tired out, 
and the landlord of the village inn addressed his prayers that 
we should put up with him to only too willing ears. Our 
coolies were only too glad to set down their burdens anywhere, 
but our Hankow cook, who had stayed with us, implored us to 
go on and not allow ourselves to be lured into the thieves' 
rest, as he called the inn. We had our own way, however, and 
heartily we enjoyed a rub down and change of clothing, and the 
subsequent supper spread on a table in the court-yard under 
the stars and by the flicker of a Chinese candle. It was a most 
balmy night and we slept the sleep of the blessed. 

August 14. — We had yielded to the entreaties of our servants 
the night before and had fired off our revolver to warn the 
robbers, but this usually most effective precaution had not 
sufficed in their eyes. According to their own account they 
had not gone to bed but sat up all night expecting robbers, 
who, it appears, had actually attacked a neighbouring farm, 
and, as we had a good deal of treasure with us for the expenses 
of the journey, they had fully made up their minds that we were 
to be attacked also. There are bandits in these mountains 



Digitized by 



Google 



no MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

who rob the outlying farms; but, as a rule, they are very 
careful not to commit any personal violence, as this would lead 
to their pursuit by the authorities, which is the last thing they 
want Of course, after sitting up all night our coolies were 
too tired to go on that day, and as the spot was a most 
entrancingly beautiful one, and it was the Sabbath to boot, we 
readily fell in with their views, and we did spend a delightful 
day. The weather was perfect. In the morning we walked 
up a glen, not a hundred yards from our domicile, where the 
gorge cut by a small stream was filled with forest trees, with 
a grassy glade under an overhanging limestone cliff for us to 
recline on, listen to the birds, and watch the sunshine through 
the trees. In the afternoon we descended a precipitous 
path which fell away from the little plateau on which the 
village stood, 300 feet or 400 feet to the river's brink, 
the opposite bank being a sheer precipice 1000 feet high. 
At a height of about 20 feet from the level of the river 
was a cavern with a wide semicircular mouth, out of 
which flowed an underground river as large in volume as the 
stream which it went to swell. Below this we looked down 
into an open level, walled in by high mountains pierced in 
three directions by large valleys, of which that which we had 
just come down formed one ; one stream coming from the east 
goes to form the lake of Lung Ch'ih, upon the banks of which 
the town of that name is built ; the two other streams unite, 
and form a decent sized river, just below it. The valley proper 
of Lung Ch'ih is almost level, being filled up with the debris 
from its surrounding mountains; through this the rivers 
have cut out sinuous channels, about 100 feet below the 
level of the valley floor, their banks as steep as the formation 
of the ground (rock detritus) will permit of; to the eye these 
seem almost perpendicular. The soil is rich in these valley- 
bottoms, and here bore magnificent crops of maize and millet, 
besides fine groves of fruit trees — persimmons, loquats, and 
oranges; but we missed the wild strawberries, raspberries, 
and blackberries, with which we had so often beguiled the steep 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS in 

climbs on Omi's slopes. We settled our bill in the evening, 
paying iooo cash for our accommodation, which, judging by his 
profuse kotows, our landlord appeared to consider a most 
munificent return. We passed a quiet night, enjoying the 
bright warm air and contrasting it with the continuous mists 
and rains of our fortnight on the summit. We were just 3500 
feet above the sea, and the climate seemed perfection — warm 
yet not relaxing. Our coolies killed a snake of a vivid grass 
green colour that came out from under a rock near which we 
had been sitting and which they said was dangerous. In the 
evening, as we sat on a cliff overlooking the river, we heard the 
wild boars in the maize fields squeaking with joy ; it was a 
beautiful calm starlit night, the air was balmy and full of glow- 
worms, and it was late before we could make up our minds to 
walk back to the inn, a coolie lighting us over the rocky path 
with a lantern. 

August 15. — Started in the rain, at first up a steep ascent 
which led over a low but steep pass, upon reaching the summit 
of which we gazed on the town of Lung Ch'ih, 500 feet below. 
The " Dragon Pool " is a small sheet of water, about two by 
three miles, and at its western end is built the town, most 
picturesque when seen from above and at a distance, with its 
curling roofs and the coloured tiles of its temples, but, as usual, 
dirty and repulsive on closer acquaintance ; and right glad we 
were that we had failed to accomplish our full stage thither, and 

t had been fortunate enough to spend two nights outside it. 

1 We descended through a lane winding between smiling tree- 

embowered homesteads until we came to the bank of the river. 
We then crossed by a suspension bridge about half-way down 
the steep banks covered with trees, and ascended on the other 
side to the main highway that came down the valley from Omi 
Hien. This was the usual paved narrow roadway of Szechuan, 
and we now made good going. It was raining, and so far the 
by-path by which we had come had necessitated cautious 
walking. We entered the town traversing the main street, in 
one of the filthiest inns of which we picked up our " boy," who 



Digitized by 



Google 



ii2 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

alleged sore feet as the reason for having left us boyless all the 
preceding day at Lei Shih Kou. He was much put out at our 
not having made the full stage on the first day, alleging, 
with some truth, that we should have difficulty in making up 
the arrears, it being now past seven with a full 90 It (30 
miles) before us, including a stiff mountain pass. The so-called 
10 It we had come already had occupied an hour's steady 
walking. We passed on up a rise on the outskirts of the little 
town, where, in a tea-house bridging a fine waterfall, we stopped 
for breakfast of tea and maize bread. The road led down the 
valley by the banks of the swift-flowing river. Soon after eight 
o'clock the sun came out ; there was not a breath of wind, and 
we found it intensely hot. There was considerable traffic on 
the road, conspicuous being strings of porters carrying blocks of 
black salt up country from Tze Liu Ching, the whole valley being 
richly cultivated and populous. The path led, as usual, some- 
times along the flats over grassy meadows, then mounting an 
overhanging cliff, and so up and down without any attempt at 
rendering the rises less steep than nature had left them, as is 
the way with Chinese roads. 

At noon we reached the market town of Ta Wei, consisting 
of one long dirty crowded street built alongside a fine rushing 
river of pellucid water — the stream we had followed down from 
its source at Omi. Here we tiffined in what we should once 
have called an exceptionally filthy inn, having with much 
difficulty managed the necessary rub down and change of 
clothing in semi-privacy, thanks to our numerous escort. We 
were nearly overcome by the sudden heat after our fortnight's 
spell of cold weather, and doubted whether, after all, we had 
not undertaken more than we could accomplish, for we had still 
50 U (16 miles) to go, and we felt already quite exhausted. The 
thermometer, which we hung up in the coolest passage-way in 
the inn, and where we spread our tiffin table, marked 84 , 
and the usual importunate crowd shut out every breath of 
air. We fanned ourselves vigorously and put wet towels 
round our heads, which had suffered not a little from the 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 113 

noonday sun. " Could we get horses ? " we said, loath as we 
were to admit this early breakdown of our projected walking 
tour. We sent out the ting-chat to find, or impress a couple of 
beasts. They came back after some waiting and declared there 
was not a horse in the whole town. We were in despair, for 
there was a high mountain before us, and the sun was terrible. 
The place was too uninviting to stop on in, even if doing so 
would not have put our whole march out of gear. Amongst 
the crowd of onlookers was one whose attractive appearance 
had led us to place her in a conspicuous position in the photo- 
graph which we had taken while lunch was being got ready ; 
she was a Taoist nun. " Horses is it you want ? " she said, 
coming forward. " Nothing easier, that is if you will ride by turns. 
I can get you an excellent horse who will carry you over the 
pass, after which you will have a comparatively easy walk. He 
will go for 300 cash." " Make it a thousand ! " we felt inclined 
to answer, but 260 cash satisfied the owner, and a pretty little 
bay Chienchang pony about eleven hands high was brought 
round to the door of the inn. We blessed that nun and became 
converts to Taoism on the spot ! It appeared that she was 
only a passer through like ourselves, but she had noticed the 
pony, and taking pity on a fellow woman's distress, had gone 
out and settled the bargain for us with the owner. 

The town of Ta Wei was situated, not unlike Lung Ch'ih, in 
a three-cornered level valley with lofty mountains rising from 
its three sides ; the streams down two of the valleys uniting to 
flow away by the third, the town being built at their junction. 
We crossed the Ta Wei branch by a covered-in wooden bridge 
which we loitered on to enjoy a delicious breeze created by the 
stream, the force of which made the rickety wooden bridge 
vibrate in a somewhat alarming manner. We here left the 
main road, and struck a short distance up the valley to the 
west; then across its level bottom, where the sun's rays 
seemed to defy every protection (Ta Wei is only 3 1 50 feet above 
sea-level, and entirely shut in), to the bank of the river which 
flowed under steep cliffs and at the foot of the mountain we 

H 



Digitized by 



Google 



ii4 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

had to cross. This river was shallow and rapid, and about 
50 yards wide. We forded it on the pony's back with some 
difficulty, riding by turns, and scrambled up the steep rocky 
path which pursued its way in an interminable zigzag up the 
mountain side, en facet, as the French well describe such roads. 
How thankful we were that we were able to rest alternately on 
the little beast's back, though it seemed cruelty to animals to 
make him climb such a mountain-side at all, let alone with 
thirteen stone on his back ! As it was the little creature, 
although we were only going at a slow walk, had to stop every 
few paces and take breath. As we got up 1000 feet and 
looked round the view was very fine; the enclosed basin 
with its rivers sparkling in the sunshine and surrounded by 
mountain-peaks just capped with fleecy clouds ; the hillsides 
covered with dark-green jungle ; and the black-roofed town, the 
only evidence of human habitation, looking in the distance 
like a huge weathered limestone block fallen from one of its 
encircling mountains. It is the extraordinary steepness of the 
mountains and their often precipitous sides that give the distin- 
guishing character to Chinese scenery and render it so eminently 
picturesque, go where one will. It possesses a wildness and 
air of mystery in keeping with the history of its strange 
people ! We crossed the summit at a gap called Wa Yao Pu, 
or "Tiled Rest House," where we found a cottage and a deli- 
cious spring of pure cold water. From here we enjoyed our 
last view for many a day of Omi, with its cloud-capped peak, 
which bore N.N.E. from Ta Wei. 

We now entered a more open country, and in the most 
revivingly fresh air travelled for some distance along a gravelly 
ridge, whose poor light-yellow soil nourished a wood of dwarf 
pine-trees, with here and there a cottage and clearing planted 
with maize. Then down a path as steep as they are made to the 
banks of another well-filled stream, with deep and blue water 
tearing over a rocky bed. The little pony made its way down 
in a marvellous manner, scrambling from rock to rock like a 
goat. A., riding astride, was so fixed in her Chinese saddle 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 115 

that she could not fall off. We turned west up stream, fol- 
lowing a narrow path between the water and a cliff, to a place 
called Tsai Kou (Herbs Gate). In the cliff a temple, dedicated 
to Kuauyin, had been hewn out, the path passing under a 
rocky archway which formed the entrance. It was now five 
o'clock, and we were not a little put out at finding we had still 
20 It to go, and all up hill. The owner of the little pony who 
helped us so far on our road was wisely deaf to our offers of 
double fare if he would let us take him on to our destination ; so 
there was nothing for it but to set out again on foot. We followed 
the bed of the stream some four or five miles up a narrow 
uncultivated valley, reminding us of the celebrated San Yu 
Tung glen near Ichang, with glimpses of side ravines of extreme 
beauty on our left as we passed along. After a few miles of 
this we left the glen to ascend the mountain which formed its. 
left bank : its right bank was formed of vertical limestone cliffs, 
above which rose steep jungle-covered mountains. Our path 
now rose by a stone staircase, and very toilsome work we found 
it climbing to the top, which we thought we should never reach 
that night; but everything comes to an end at last, and so 
did this staircase which cuts its way through a thick maquis of 
dwarf oak, rhododendron and azalea scrub, pink waxy begonias 
and other lovely flowers growing in confusion : above this a 
mile or more of easy gradient along a high ridge, from which 
we looked down on the stream in its gorge 1000 feet below, 
brought us to the Chi Tien Tze, a rough range of buildings of 
red earth concrete surrounding a spacious court, half farmyard, 
half inn, which serves to accommodate the traffic, mostly pack- 
coolies, crossing the pass of Kuan Tou Shan. It was quite 
dark by the time we arrived, and the wilderness of the situation 
was enhanced by the dim light of the coloured paper lanterns 
which our coolies carried about The air was very keen, but I 
enjoyed a hot bath in the court-yard in the privacy of the night, 
followed by a douche of cold water poured over me by a coolie 
mounted on a rock beside me, then donned my pyjamas and 
dressing-gown, and felt properly attired for the dinner which 



Digitized by 



Google 



n6 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

was now awaiting us. We had been under wiy thirteen hours, 
and, except a short rest for tiffin, and three hours of pony 
divided between us, had walked up and down hill 105 li f or 
35 miles in all, having gained in altitude since the morning a 
surplus to the good of just 3000 feet. 

At this elevation — 6200 feet — and on a mountain ridge, the 
air was delicious, a gentle breeze and a clear starlight night 
adding to the charm ; our rest-house was quite isolated and we 
could hardly realise that we were only half a day's journey 
distant from the hot, dirty, crowded town of Ta Wei. The 
accommodation was of the roughest possible description, but 
we would not have exchanged it for a palace in the valley. 

August 16. — Set out at dawn to cross the pass 700 feet 
* higher ; this we reached by a steep narrow jgully and then 
stood on the crest of the Kwan-tou Shan, or " Peck-measure 
Mountain," so-called from the shape of its summit, which simu- 
lates the steep "tumble-home" sides of this necessary piece 
of furniture in every rice-shop. Just below the crest stood a 
tumble-down rest-house, where we breakfasted on a table in 
the open. Thence we descended rapidly by a very steep, 
winding, rough, rockstrewn path to the village of Luluping, 
2500 feet below. Thence down again till we descended into a 
gully and crossed a stream flowing at the foot of a high steep 
range (5000 or 6000 feet) on our right, along which we coasted 
by a narrow path with a precipitous gorge on our left, our 
course being west. The air was hot and extraordinarily still, 
and at 2.30, on arriving at the hamlet of Ma Chang Kang, we 
were glad to rest awhile, sipping tea in the shade of a farmyard, 
surrounded by maize patches. Thence the path turned west 
and by south, and emerging from the Luluping valley, after 
nearly eight hours' steady walking, we were gladdened by the 
sight of the Tung river, here flowing between steep banks with 
a furious current, the opposite shore to that upon which we 
were standing (only a couple of hundred feet above the water) 
rising in lofty mountains, extraordinarily steep, whose summits 
were lost in the clouds. These were the Tapu mountains, 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 117 

whose grand outline we had so often admired from Omi — the 
home of the independent and inaccessible Lolo, the northern 
frontier of whose territory is guarded by the unnavigable 
torrent of the Tung. The river, as we now looked down upon 
it, was about 150 yards wide, a deep body of whitish-green 
water swirling along in terrific whirlpools until it took a 
rectangular turn a couple of miles below us y on our left, and 
disappeared in the recesses of a narrow gloomy gorge. Here 
and there on the opposite shore, which was mostly cultivated, 
we could distinguish the white towers with verandah-like roofs 
in which the rare agriculturists have their fortified dwellings. 
It was the wildest and most romantic scene we had yet 
witnessed and had the additional charm of surprise. 

We now followed up the Tung river westwards on its left 
bank, the path taking the lowest available foothold — usually 
from two to four hundred feet above the riven The day was 
warm and we had walked fully thirty miles when, at six o'clock, 
a notch in the steep hills on our right disclosed an affluent 
coming in from the north-west, a mile up the banks of which 
lay our destination for the night. At the point where we 
turned to enter the valley of Kin Kou (" the Golden Gate ") 
another most magnificent view and another total surprise made 
us forget our fatigue and sit down to gaze at and take it in 
thoroughly before turning away. We stood on a lofty cliff 
overhanging the point of junction of the Tung and the " Golden 
Gate " rivers, the one stream flowing towards us from the right, 
the other from the left ; the two uniting in a whirlpool at our 
feet and passing away by the valley we had just ascended. In , 
front a wall of mountains stopped our advance ; the only exit 
was either to our left across the north-west boundary of Lolo- 
land, or else turning to our right up the bed of the affluent, 
which appeared to emerge from a crack in the limestone 
mountains too narrow to pass through. Beneath, and partly 
wedged into this crack, and crowded on a narrow strip of level 
land between the towering cliffs and the torrent, stood the 
market town of Kin Kou Ho— a nest of most picturesque 



Digitized by 



Google 



n8 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

white-walled, black-roofed houses, of Liliputian dimensions — 
a strange isolated swarm of humanity settled down on a 
diminutive oasis in the midst of a wilderness of gigantic 
uninhabited mountains. We took a photograph, but the 
distance and the hazy atmosphere gave a poor result. Turning 
then to the right, we descended by a steep slippery path to the 
river bed, and walking less than a mile along its rugged bank, 
at times stepping from rock to rock in the rushing torrent, 
found our picture dissolve itself into the main street of an 
unusually filthy crowded town. It was market day and a 
theatrical performance was in progress. We had already met 
parties of women and children returning home from the entertain- 
ment, who had invariably given a smiling reply to our greeting, 
41 Come from the play?" We found, after some considerable 
delay, accommodation for our party in an inn quite in character 
with the town — horribly filthy and with its guest-room over 
the pig-sty and cesspool — and our cook immediately set about 
preparing dinner, much incommoded by the most importunate 
crowd we had yet encountered. One good feature of Chinese 
inns, however, is that the hot water is always to be had, so 
here it did not take me long to have a tub ready. The back 
door of the inn opened on to the stream — a great volume of 
water tumbling in glorious transparent masses over the big 
rocks which choked its bed, here about fifty yards across. 
Selecting a quiet back-water, and with two coolies holding up a 
sheet to screen me from the crowd (the greater portion of which 
I happily drew off from our cook), I had my tub placed beside 
the stream and finished off my ablutions with a dip in the clear 
cold water, just as heavy rain again set in, threatening, so the 
inhabitants said, to swell the already swollen stream to a 
dangerous size. Several houses, built in too dangerous 
proximity to the water, had been carried away in a spate two 
days before and some people drowned. We passed a not very 
happy night here. It was hot and close and damp ; the place 
swarmed with insects ; the smells were horrible ; our bedroom, 
built out at the back on piles at the edge of the stream, seemed 



Digitized by 



Google 



THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 119 

in dangerous proximity to the torrent, whose roar, after nightfall, 
was so loud that we could hardly speak. The rain descended 
in sheets of water which made its way through the roof, so 
that we had difficulty in finding dry spots for our clothes. How 
we longed for another resting-place in the mountains like that 
of the previous night! But since then we had descended 
4000 feet and were in a tiny townlet overcrowded with three 
thousand visitors to its market which had been held that day. 

Owing to the steepness of the mountains and the general 
deforestation of the country, the rains drain off with extra- 
ordinary rapidity; thus the Yangtze river which on July 6, 
when we left Chungking, stood at 38 feet 6 inches above the 
winter level, rose by the 13th of that month, in consequence of 
extraordinarily heavy rains in Yunnan, to 96 feet 8 inches ; 
fell again by August 3 to 28 feet, and then rose again to 
57 feet on August 16, this rise being due to the rains in 
the basins of the Ya and Tung rivers, in which we were 
travelling; the rains themselves we experienced during our 
stay on Mount Omi. After this date the river went on, with 
only comparatively slight fluctuations, steadily subsiding 
towards its lowest February level. At Chungking the 
Yangtze is half a mile wide and when at its highest some 
thirty fathoms deep and running at about eight knots. 
But the fall of its bed is nothing to that of the Tung. 
Between Ichang and Chungking, a distance of 1800 It (say, 
500 miles), the fall in the bed of the Yangtze is about 400 feet, 
while the difference in level between Kinkou Ho— "The Golden 
Gate " — and Kiating, where the Tung river debouches into the 
Min, is 800 feet, in a course of some 100 miles only. Thus 
the Tung is only navigated by wood-rafts, down stream, and 
that at the most favourable season. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER VIII 

UP THE SAIKING SHAN, OR " DRY PRAYER-BOOKS 

MOUNTAIN" 

Attempt to Cross over among the Unconqoered Lolos — Broken 
Roads and Bridges — Romantic Ravine — Wading— One Survivor oat 
of Twenty-Five— Stupendous Vertical Walls — Deciding which way to 
Climb Saiking — Priest, Proprietor and Mountain Guide — Rock 
Amphitheatre Three Thousand Feet High— Herd of Cattle— Lily 
Precipice— Fairy Bridges— Up a Knife Edge— Then Ladders— Park- 
like Top — Rough Temple — Temple History — Rhododendron Thicket 
— Grinding Maize to Keep Warm — Cessation of Heat— Women 
Anchorites. 

August 17. — Still pouring and impossible to make a start up 
the mountain with our laden coolies, apart from reports of 
broken-down bridges and impassable torrents. From the 
summit of the cliff yesterday evening we had noticed a raft 
ferrying passengers across the Tung to the Lolo country, so we 
set out with the camera hoping to utilise the enforced delay 
and gain some interesting photographs. The path led along 
the bank of the Golden Stream and over rocks lying in tbe 
water which had fallen from the cliff above. But, after 
scrambling and partially wading some distance, at the risk of 
falling into the roaring torrent, we had to give up the attempt, 
not caring to wade over our knees in the swift water. We 
turned back and crossed the river to the other bank by a 
suspension bridge which, unstayed by any guy lines, swayed in 
an alarming manner. Here we found a large temple with 
spacious courtyard, embedded in trees, in which were set out 
rows of tables at which had sat the spectators of the play on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 121 

previous day. All was now deserted, however, and we made 
the best of our way back to our hotel, where we found the 
river still rising, and all progress said to be impossible that 
day. We tried hard to arrive at particulars but could only 
learn of bridges swept away and roads washed out by the 
rains. At last we set out to see for ourselves, leaving orders 
to have everything packed and ready for a start at noon. We 
walked half a mile up stream to where was another suspension 
bridge : here the road had indeed been cut into by the water 
and the half of a row of houses with their protecting embank- 
ment had fallen in, a furious eddy undermining it still more as 
we crawled along in the rear of the ruined houses. Crossing 
to the right bank, we ascended by a very steep slippery 
path, bordered by fine trees, to a small hamlet where 
after long cross-questioning (and having no followers with us) 
we obtained the admission that it was possible to proceed, but 
that we should have in different places to wade the stream, up 
which our course lay, owing to the plank bridges having been 
carried off by the recent spate. This stream, called the 
Shunshui Ho, falls into the Golden River on its right 
bank at a spot just above the town and below the suspension 
bridge by which we had crossed. It flows through such a 
narrow chasm that, walking in the rain along the opposite 
bank, we had scarcely noticed it, not imagining it possible 
that our onward path lay up this apparently inaccessible 
ravine. The stream issued from a chasm only a few yards 
wide whose vertical walls were lost in the clouds. We 
returned to the inn, ate our tiffin, and, after mixture of threats 
and arguments, got our train off by noon, just as the weather 
was beginning to clear. And what a climb we had! No 
wonder our laden coolies thought us tyrannical barbarians: 
the path was the slippery Szechuan red clay with hard rocks 
here and there over which small waterfalls were pouring. Up 
this we struggled a thousand feet or more, slipping at every 
step until the path turned off into the ravine, along the left 
bank of which it had been cut out at a height of several 



Digitized by 



Google 



122 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

hundred feet above the torrent The point where we thus 
entered the glen was one of the most beautiful and romantic 
spots it is possible to conceive. The stream had cut out for 
itself a deep gorge and its affluents had cut out similar gorges 
at right angles. The view of many of these side chasms was 
bounded by magnificent waterfalls; at times, two waterfalls 
tumbling face to face and meeting in a mutual embrace. Here 
and there stood a patch of maize on a tiny slope, with a 
precipice above and another below, to which it would seem 
impossible for anything mortal, excepting birds, to have access. 
Lovely yellow lilies, pink-tipped begonias, relieved the bright 
green of the long grass, and dark pine forests crowned the 
mountain tops. This country, from Kinkou Ho westwards, 
was only opened to Chinese immigration in the reign of Tao 
Kuang, early in this century, following on the conquest of the 
country by the Emperor Kien Lung in 1775, when the Tibetan 
tribes or savages (Man-tse) as the Chinese call them, were 
driven back and another advance to the west was made by the 
ever-expanding Chinaman. Once past the neck of the gorge, 
our path was a fairly good one, although we were continually 
going up and down, as is the way in China, where no 
engineering labour has ventured to interfere with the 
ruggedness of nature. At times the road descended into the 
water and we had to wade past a projecting cliff, holding hands 
as an additional precaution for ourselves and our coolies as we 
made our way slowly against the rushing stream. As the 
valley opened out, isolated farmsteads appeared, surrounded by 
patches of maize, millet and buckwheat. The hard walking in 
the damp atmosphere warmed me so that I was tempted to 
undress and wade up a side stream to where it was fed by a 
waterfall, and I enjoyed a delicious bath in the pure water, but 
carried away a vivid recollection of this idyllic spot, in legs 
covered with an eruption from stinging nettles and in the loss 
of my finger rings, which had disappeared when I got back to 
the spot where I had laid down my clothes. The country was 
evidently not as wild and uninhabited as I had taken it to be ; 



Digitized by 



Google 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 123 

nor was I (more's the pity) in the country of the Man-tee who 
never steal, though they rob on provocation. 

Our men had settled to pass the night at an inn known as the 
Cave House (Ngai Fang Tsze), where we arrived not long 
before sunset. This turned out to be indeed a cave house ; it 
was hollowed out of a cliff, and was as damp, close, dark, filthy, 
and warm a nest as a Chinaman could desire. We absolutely 
refused to remain there under any circumstances, and deter- 
mined to push on to the next place, though we were told that it 
had been destroyed in the late spate. And so, when we at last 
arrived there, we found it had been. Part of the framework and 
a corner of the roof was all that remained of a once roomy rest- 
house; its site was now mainly occupied by piles of huge 
boulders. In a corner of the ruins sat a poor woman sur- 
rounded by a few pieces of worthless furniture saved from the 
wreck, and cooking her rice at an improvised furnace. She was 
covered with jewellery, and seemed anything but sad, although 
the only survivor of twenty-five persons who had occupied the 
house when, a few nights back, the spate came down. She told 
us we should find a farmhouse a mile on, which we did, and it 
was not long before we were supping comfortably under the 
stars on a grassy lawn in front of the Chen Wa Tien, or " tiled " 
shop of the Chen family, which, our thermometer boiling at just 
206 degrees, we made to be 4200 feet above sea level — 2300 
above Kin Kou Ho, whence we had successfully advanced fifty 
/*, or seventeen miles, into the unknown West in the space of 
six hours, through scenery of sublime beauty. 

August 18. — Off by six; a beautiful morning; path still up 
the stream, which has its source in the Saiking Shan, our 
destination. We stepped out merrily through scenery similar 
to that of yesterday. After about five miles walking, we came 
to a break in the mountain wall of the opposite bank and 
through it caught our first glimpse since we had left Omi of the 
stupendous vertical walls of the Saiking, towering 6000 feet 
above our present level. But this break itself was the rift 
through which the recent spate had made its way. An 



Digitized by 



Google 



124 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

avalanche of huge angular blocks had rolled down, crossed the 
stream and surged up on the opposite shore, on which we 
stood, blocking our path and having to be climbed over. The 
Saiking mountain is formed of a mass of compact limestone, 
' but fragments from its sides have doubtless yielded the jalus 
which forms the slope at the foot of which runs the Chupshui 
Ho ; and a torrent from its flanks had evidently, in its course 
to the river, washed out soil from under and led these loose 
fragments of the talus to come tumbling down the slope as we 
saw them in all their fresh disorder. Hence we ascended on 
to the level of a kind of bench, the hills on our right receding 
and opening out into a side valley near the junction with which 
stands the market town of Leng Chang (" Cold Market "), and a 
mile or more beyond that Kuei Hua Chang (" Cassia Flower 
Market ")• This is composed of the usual single village street, 
dirty and ragged-looking as are nearly all these Szechuan moun- 
tain towns. But not being market day it was quiet and almost 
deserted. Outside one of the shut-up houses we called a halt 
and sat down on a bench to eat a cold breakfast from our 
stores — a meal which had too long been delayed owing to our 
porters having stopped on the way for their own breakfast and 
left us to walk on unattended. We now had to decide where 
to go next. Ta Tien Ch'ih, which was properly our destination 
for the ascent of the Saiking, was 15 miles further still, with a 
long steep pass intervening ; the heat was oppressive, the air 
perfectly calm and the sun gaining power every moment. While 
thus hesitating and discussing with our men, who, of course, 
wanted to stop where they were, who should come along but 
a young priest, bright and intelligent-looking, from whom we 
at once got the intelligible answers we had failed to extract 
from the inhabitants. To our no little surprise, the priest 
turned out to be the holy man of the mountain himself, and, 
indeed, as it afterwards turned out, its sole proprietor. He 
had just come from a neighbouring village where he had gone 
that morning to kanchang (market), and he was now returning 
with a bundle of provisions. Although the path up from 



pigitized by 



Google 




East Front of Sai King Mountain. An Amphitheatre of Rock 30C0 feet vertical. 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



• *• _• 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 125 

Ta Tien Ch'ih was the easier, there was a way up from this 
side which led into that one, which he was about to follow. 
Here was an opportunity to be seized ; the priest said if we 
started at once and made haste we could reach the summit 
before nightfall. Leaving some of our coolies to go on to 
Ta Tien Ch'ih, where we proposed resting a few days at the 
comfortable altitude of 6000 feet, and in the luxury of an empty 
house all to ourselves (a house which had been placed at our 
disposal by the kindness of the Roman Catholic mission at 
Huang Mu Chang) we set out with the remainder of our train 
in company with our priestly guide. Turning back by a path 
almost parallel with that by which we had come, we crossed a 
low intervening ridge which conceals the view of the mountain 
from Kuei Hua Chang and then entered upon a comparatively 
smooth slope which ascends by an easy gradient to the foot of 
the great precipice which stood before us. It was an exception- 
ally fine clear day, and the mountain, with its 3000 feet 
high wall, looked quite near. But it was a long and weary 
up-hill walk before we had even traversed the slope, which 
was about a mile in width and furrowed by innumerable shallow 
streams meandering through it, which we were for ever cross- 
ing and recrossing, the ground getting more barren and rocky 
as we advanced. We had now arrived within a mile of the 
foot of the precipice and, as we ascended a little knoll and 
gained a complete view of its outline, we were indeed awe- 
struck with its grand proportions. Imagine an amphitheatre 
of rock, 30OO feet vertical — as I afterwards measured it — out 
of whose sides spouted half a dozen fountains of pellucid water, 
the sources of the streams we had been traversing. A slight 
rim of green marked the upper edge of the wall against the 
blue sky, the summit itself being almost a perfect level. We 
saw no possible means of ascending, and our position reminded 
us of that of the first explorers of the Roraima mountain in 
British Guiana, which we imagine, from the description given 
by Dr. Perkins, the Saiking Shan much resembles in its 
apparent inaccessibility and the completely isolated forest on 



Digitized by 



Google 



126 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

its top. We were looking at the north-east face: up the 
north-west precipice, facing Ta Tien Ch'ih, said the priest, 
runs the elephant's trunk : we climb up to the snout and then 
an easy path up the trunk takes us to the top. It was now 
nearly four; we had come up 2000 feet above Kuei Hua 
Chang and had still 4000 to do. We paused awhile on 
the bank of one of the small streams — called Er Tao Ho 
(" Number Two River ") — some three yards wide, about a foot 
deep, and ate a rapid meal, washed down with its delicious 
cold water. We now bore to the right, ascending by a 
steep path through thick jungle to a small plateau called Lan 
Pao Ping ( 4I See-Treasure-Flat "), where was a grass clearing 
upon which was a small herd of grazing cattle — the first we 
had yet seen in China during a residence of over thirty 
years. On this plateau stood an isolated cube-shaped rock 
that had evidently broken off from the side of the mountain, 
which was now on our left ; and on the rock was a straw- 
thatched cottage, approached by a ladder, up which the cow-herd 
bolted precipitately on catching sight of the strange procession. 
From here, rounding the corner of the mountain, we ascended 
the face of the Lien Hua Ngai, or " Lily Precipice," by an 
exceedingly steep rugged path, through jungle amidst which 
delicious ripe blackberries were growing in profusion, whereupon 
we called an occasional halt to do justice to them, and most 
refreshing they were. Hence to the Kung Mu Shih, or " Male 
and Female Rock," which is connected by a Tien-sien Chiao, or 
"Fairy Bridge," with Lei Tung Ping ("Thunder Cave Flat"). 
These " fairy bridges, heaven-built," are common throughout 
all the lime-stone country from Ichang westwards, and the 
present one formed a most opportune connection with Lei Tung 
Ping, which we should put down as the tip of the elephant's 
snout, though tt^e Chinese, with characteristic vagueness, refuse 
to define such phenomena precisely. At Lei Tung Ping stands 
a rock, the head of which has been carved into a face of Amita 
Buddha, protecting the Tian-men, or " Gate of Heaven " — a 
natural cleft, through which we pass to the Lohan rocks, 



Digitized by 



Google 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 127 

upright pinnacles which simulate the eighteen Arahat or 
immediate disciples of Gautama. The path now leads up a 
knife edge, along the top of a wall of rock just wide enough 
for a not too difficult pathway, as the sides of the wall are clad 
with jungle, and so, in most places, afford a sort of protection ; 
then come the Arahat rocks, after passing which the road 
brings up short against the Kuan Yin Hgai ("Goddess of 
Mercy Cliff") — a name very popular for precipices in Szechuan. 
Here the ascent is continued by ladders fixed against the rock- \ 
side with, of course, no hand-rail, and, if one lost one's hold, a 
fall of 1000 feet, such as it made one dizzy to look down on. 
Go up we must, and could, but should we ever be able to come 
down them ? But for our good fortune in meeting with the priest, 
I doubt if we should have ever faced them ; our porters did 
not like them, although we had given them easy loads, and they 
were comparatively comfortable with their peitse behind their 
shoulders. There were three ladders in all, with twenty to thirty 
rungs apiece — put in anyhow at unequal angles and distances, 
more Sinense. A Chinaman has no nerves, and hence the 
absence of guards in such places, such as we feeble barbarians 
demand. At last, having successfully negotiated the dreaded 
precipice of the Goddess of Mercy, we arrived in safety at the 
Ling Kuan Lo, or " Hall of the Soul." Nothing more was now 
before us but a steep path through thick wood, which landed 
us suddenly on the summit, which, however, we should not 
have recognised as such, surrounded, as it were, by thick forest, 
but for the abrupt change in the path from the vertical to the 
horizontal. 

From this point, a walk of a mile and a half by a winding 
path over gently undulating ground, through virgin forest, 
with here and there glades of rich grass, and crossing many ' 
streams of beautiful clear water running to the edge of the 
cliff, where they toppled over in glorious waterfalls. It is \ 
astonishing where all this water comes from, seeing that the 
Saiking Shan is the highest of all the surrounding mountains. 
Tired as we were, we thoroughly enjoyed this final walk on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



128 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

level, through the over-arching jungle and by winding wood- 
land paths, until, just as it was getting too dark to see our way, 
our coolies had already lit their lanterns, we ascended a low 
knoll by a short steep path, and entered the one temple of the 
Saiking, having ascended 6500 feet since the morning. Barring 
short rests for hasty meals, we had been fourteen hours afoot, 
and that, thanks to the glorious air, without over-fatigue. 

August 19. — Heavy rain squalls in the night, followed by a 
beautiful day, ie., the sun shone continuously upon the little 
knoll upon which the temple is built, but all below was a sea 
of cloud, so that there was no view whatsoever, and, instead of 
being on the top of a mountain where a short walk in any 
direction would send us over a gigantic precipice, it might, for 
all appearances, have been a warm autumn morning in the 
English country ; the rich short turf, the wild fruits, the little 
brooks and the fresh misty air, all reminded us of home. And 
how glad we were to have a well-earned rest before us, after 
six days tramp over the mountains from Omi hither, in this 
perfectly ideal spot ! The temples or monastery comprised a 
range of buildings, loosely put together and of generally 
tumbledown appearance : the main erection, facing east, con- 
tained the shrine of Kuanyin, while a lofty barn-like wing, 
facing south, contained lodging for the monks, a spacious 
kitchen and the guest-room in which we were lodged. Every- 
| where the wind blew through the rough planks, and the floor 
of rough rock, with steep high steps uniting one room with the 
other, was full of cavities and often rendered slippery by the 
rain that leaked through, occasioning us more than one severe 
fall and rendering it absolutely impossible to move after 
nightfall without a lantern. During our three days on the 
mountain the range of the thermometer was from 44 ° night 
minimum to 63 ° day maximum. The priests, of whom there 
were two, besides a servant, who collected wood and water and 
ground the daily supply of maize which, with salted turnip, 
formed the staple of their diet, cowered most of the time over 
the green-wood fire on the ground, the acrid blinding fumes of 



Digitized by 



Google 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 129 

which mostly kept us at a distance. We put on our warmest 
clothes and enjoyed the fresh cool air, taking our meals in the 
open, when the rain permitted. The temple was named the 
Pootoo Sze or Pootoo monastery, after the celebrated island of 
that name in the Chusan archipelago, equally dedicated to the \ 
popular Kuanyin Buddha. Formerly the temples on the moun- 
tain were more numerous and we came across their ruins 
occasionally in the grass, dating from the Ming period. Since 
that time the mountain had been deserted by all but the inde- 
fatigable wood-cutters; then, in the reign of Tung Chih, 13th 
year (1874), the mountain was re-opened and pilgrims, of whom 
some 300 (many being Thibetans) had climbed up this year, 
were again resorting to its shrine. Our young priest friend, 
who had been delegated to the post by the Chinting abbot on 
Omi, had, he informed us, recently acquired the mountain by 
purchase for the sura of Tls. 700 {£iSo) in order, he said, to 
preserve its forests from the rapacity of the lumbermen. 
For this sum he had acquired a unique domain of some ' 
800 acres, perfectly walled in by inaccessible precipices and 
approachable only by the removable ladders. He had raised 
the needful money by going about the province three years 
armed with a yuen-pu f and it is really astonishing what an 
amount of money is collected by subscription in this way for 
public purposes in a poor country like China. We enjoyed a 
real hermit's tiffin of bread and cheese, and delicious water 
of a temperature of 45 °. We thought our ruinous lodging a 
delightful change from our ditch-encircled room at Omi, and 
only wished we had come on here sooner. We boiled our 
thermometer twice daily, as on Omi, and made the height 
11,100 feet as against Omi's 10,500. In this we differ from 
Baber, who reverses these figures. The Chinese however, who 
are generally right in such matters, all declare the Saiking to 
be higher than Omi. In the afternoon we descended by the 
only practicable path, down the edge of the elephant's trunk, 
to the top of the Kuanyin precipice, and, getting below the 
clouds, enjoyed a magnificent view down the valley with its 



Digitized by 



Google 



i 3 o MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

swollen watercourses. The surrounding mountains looked 
wild in the extreme, not a human habitation being visible. 
Everything was reeking with moisture, but the air felt most 
invigorating without being uncomfortably cold. 

August 20. — The sun rose clear of clouds and then vanished 
for the day. We walked through the thick wood to the edge of 
the precipice at the back of the temple. The cliff on this, the 
west, side seemed to be even higher than on the north-east, up 
the face of which we had come ; it descended sheer into a wild 
uninhabited valley 5000 feet below us. In order to see it, we 
had to break our way through the thick bush, mostly composed 
of rhododendron trees, about twenty feet high, with wide- 
spreading gnarled roots. Below was a carpet of moss a foot 
thick, which, with the rhododendron roots, overhung the cliff, 
and on which we had to stand to get a view. We saw the 
snowy range, which looked quite near, instead of being still 
eight days journey distant, but the coup (Tail was not so grand 
as that from the more distant Omi. In the afternoon our 
coolie came up from Ta Tien Ch'ih with supplies which he 
carried in his peitse on his back ; he had found the road very 
difficult, had fallen down and broken all the eggs, also a bottle of 
native wine, with which we had hoped to keep out It he cold and 
damp. Everything was reeking with moisture ; in the evening 
heavy rain set in, which continued all night ; the roof leaked 
like a sieve, and big puddles formed in the hollows of the mud- 
floor. We were glad to find a dry corner and get under the 
blankets as soon as supper was over. 

August 21. — Breakfast in our bedroom by candle-light, there 
being no window, while it was less exposed to the weather than 
the outer apartment, through which the wind and rain blew as 
in a barn, and that a ruinous one. The thermometer only 
reached 49 , and we found it hard to keep warm : we did not 
care to go out, and it was impossible to descend the mountain 
in such weather. These summer rains, to any one who has 
seen the huge torrents they produce, are fully sufficient to 
account for the great rise in the Yangtze River at this season. 



Digitized by 



Google 



UP THE SAIKING SHAN 131 

Rockhill, the Thibetan traveller, justly remarks : " The idea 
that the great and sudden freshets that occur in Western 
China are caused by the melting of the snow on the mountains 
of Eastern Thibet, or by the great rainfall in that country, is 
an entirely erroneous one." And he adds: "The mistaken 
removal of all timber and brushwood from the mountain sides 
is the cause of these accidents." Even the blackberries, 
raspberries, and strawberries of the day before could not 
tempt us out, and we spent our time praying for the rain to 
cease, and trying to warm ourselves by aiding our priest — 
Yuantse was his name — to grind his maize, and we found the 
horizontal motion pretty tiring for the arms. 

August 22.— -Poured again all night through, but the morning 
set in with a fresh north-west breeze and brought cold, clear 
weather. There was a real autumnal feeling in the air and, by 
the Chinese calendar, to-day is the "Cessation of heat." For 
the first time since our arrival on the mountain we saw Omi ; 
the mountain stood out quite clear in the north-east and looked 
very near; in the south-east were the rugged peaks Ta Pu and 
the Ta Liang Shan or " Great Beam Mountain " ; and between 
we had a glimpse of the steaming Kiating plain, for was it not 
August, and in latitude 29°, although we were shivering in the 
sunshine ? This view enabled us to realise for the first time 
how high up we were. We quickly turned in to an early 
breakfast, hastily packed up and said " Good-bye " to our friend 
Yuantse, and by nine o'clock were half-way down the mountain. 
We first walked half an hour on the level through the narrow 
stream-crossed woodland path to the top of the trunk, all the 
time dreading the descent of those terrible ladders. However, 
on reaching the top of the Kuanyin cliff we were enveloped in 
thick cloud, which cut off the abyss from our vision — a relief 
to us feeble plain-dwellers. Before the fog shut down on us 
we had paused to look back at the precipice on whose summit 
we had spent three days. About 30 feet below the top we were 
just able to recognise a small cave with a miniature rock plat- 
form in front of it : below this a sheer fall of 3000 feet. Here 



Digitized by 



Google 



132 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

two sisters, we were told, had devoted themselves to a holy life, 
to purify themselves, as the Chinese say. They were let 
down by a rope and there lived many years, their father, our 
informant said, sending them supplies of rice at regular inter- 
vals. They left three years ago, their term of purification 
having expired. None but the impassive Eastern would, we 
should think, be found to go through such an ordeal. Upon 
reaching the Lohan ridge we set up the camera, as from this 
point one has the great precipice right in front : we stayed 
three hours here waiting for the fog to lift ; we had too far to 
go to make it safe to remain longer. To reach our destination 
— the Ta Tien Ch'ih, or " Great Heavenly Pool n — we had to turn 
north-westwards by a pass that led us past the great west 
precipice ; of this we got one glimpse and quickly set up the 
camera, but too late, and another long halt here led to no better 
result. The path was a very steep one, very narrow and very 
rough ; the air was close and sultry, and we found it fully as 
tiring as going up, where each step forward took us into better 
air. We descended into the Ta Tien Ch'ih valley— a small 
basin of maize-fields with a shallow lake in the centre, sur- 
\ t rounded by scrub-covered mountains, from which everything in 
the semblance of a tree had been carefully removed— just in 
time to reach the village inn before nightfall, having descended 
nearly 5000 feet. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER IX 

ANCIENT LOLOLAND 

Roman Catholic Village— Deforestation— Nine Thousand Feet Pass- 
Vertical Ravine between ns and our Goal— Huang Mu Market Town — 
Roman Catholic Mission — Lolo Groves — Market Day — Lolo Beauties 
— Lolos to Tea — Lolos Going Home— Salt Carriers' Gains — Three 
Passes— Rudeness in Market Towns — Hothouse Vegetation — Canti- 
lever Bridge. 

August 23, 24, 25. — We were delayed three days at Ta Tien 
Ch'ih waiting for a special courier whom we had ordered up 
from Kiating with our mails. We stayed in the " Chinting," a 
roomy native one-floor house built by the villagers, who are 
mostly old Roman Catholic families, to receive the priest, who 
lives at Huangmuchang, thirty miles to the west, upon the 
occasions of his visitations ; the centre room being fitted up 
with an altar. This had been put at our disposal with the 
courtesy towards travellers which distinguishes the Catholic 
Fathers throughout China. We found the Christian villages 
most friendly. They had actually three girls' schools, and 
their houses were as clean as those surrounding them — 
members of three religions, as they called themselves — were 
dirty. To us it was delightful to have a house to ourselves 
and enjoy the privacy which is absolutely wanting in Chinese 
inns or temples. But it came very near proving our Capua. 
We were disinclined to move from it ; it poured with rain 
nearly the whole time, and the valley we found to be close and 
damp, though cool, and we hardly felt up to much more 



Digitized by 



Google 



134 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

continuous walking. So we endeavoured to hire one of the 
many ponies that were grazing in the swampy meadows round 
the lake, but, though promised each day that ponies should be 
brought to our door the following morning, when the time 
arrived there was always some excuse, although we had been 
asked and had agreed to pay an exorbitant sum for their hire. 
It turned out afterwards that they were all mares, the stallions 
being away engaged in the transport of brick tea, and that the 
owners had never had any serious intention of hiring to us. 
The temperature while here ranged from night minimum of 
56 to a day maximum of 67 °, thus maintaining the cha- 
' racter of Szechuan for its exceptionally equable climate. 
The height above the sea level we made to be 6020 feet. The 
valley produced little beyond maize in the bottom and a jungle 
grass on the slopes which is burnt for potash. A hundred 
years ago all this country was covered with dense forest, but 
now, except in the most inaccessible spots, there is scarcely a 
tree to be seen. As the naturalist Amand David, who resided 
long in these parts, remarks, the Chinese antipathy to forests is 
due, probably, as much to their dread of wild beasts as to their 
need of lumber and firing. They are agriculturists and not 
hunters, and they destroy everything that interferes with the 
former pursuit, as they, in like manner, steadily and stealthily 
have driven out the aboriginal Thibetan and Lolo tribes by 
whom up to Kien Lung's time, all this country was exclusively 
inhabited. Within a day's journey of Ta Tien Ch'ih, Baber, 
15 years before the time of our journey, found wild cattle 
known as the Bos Buemini or Beyamini. We crossed by 
low passes into neighbouring similar valleys, swampy ground 
occupying the bottom, the pools full of fish, the steep mountain 
sides covered with long grass, the spiked seeds of which tore 
through one's clothes and are a terror to dogs. Here and 
there a tumbledown farmstead surrounded by patches of maize, 
a wild gloomy country, from our walks in which we were 
careful to get back before dark. On the 24th our courier 
arrived with London letters to the 2nd of June, and Chung- 



Digitized by 



Google 



ANCIENT LOLOLAND 135 

king dates to the 7th of August. We found here the best ' 
honey we had ever tasted in our lives, and bought four catties 
for 200 cash a catty (less than sixpence for a pound), which 
proved a valuable addition to the unleavened corn bread on our 
subsequent journey. Although we found our residence here, 
owing to the damp, the reverse of beneficial, nowhere had we 
seen such healthy-looking Chinese; they had a fine colour, 
unlike the usual yellow complexions, and were dressed in 
warm knitted woollen jackets from Ta-chien-lu. 

August 27. — Set out at daylight to walk to Hung Mu Chang, 
thirty miles across the mountains. We quitted the " Celestial 
Pool " by an easy pass which led us into another wild valley, 
where, walking along a muddy path by the side of a reed- 
grown pond, we stopped for breakfast at an isolated farmhouse 
and inn, called Siao Tien Tse (Small Inn). The place was 
so filthy that we hurried on up the valley. Needless to say the 
proprietors were heathen ; and we resolved at once to tiffin in 
a Christian house if possible. Shortly afterwards we entered 
a wild uninhabited glen, up which we ascended steadily, 
following the course of a stream which meandered down it. 
Near the head of the glen we turned off to the left and 
commenced to ascend the side by a steep zigzag path which 
brought us to a cottage called Shan Chiao (mountain foot), 
where we halted for a few moments to collect our train in the 
fog. The country and the weather reminded us not a little of 
the mountains west of Killarney. From here on we continued 
the ascent up an interminable and abominably steep zigzag 
path that seemed to go on and on for ever in the clouds, until 
at last we halted in a cottage 50 feet below the top of the pass, 
a resting-place for porters, who use this road to carry goods — 
mainly salt — from Kiating to Fulin. Here we boiled our 
thermometer and found ourselves to be 9400 feet above the sea : 
the pass is called Soyilin (" Rain-clothes Forest ") from the 
trees, of which not one now remains. The ridge on the top 
was extremely narrow, and the descent on the other side, 
another steep zigzag over a rock-strewn path which tried us 



Digitized by 



Google 



136 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

empty-handed, and we could not help pitying the poor salt 
porters with 200 lbs. of what looked like lumps of reddish- 
grey stone on their backs. At last we got out of the clouds, 
and the magnificent ^escarped walls of the Lolo country, 
beyond the Tung River, came once more into view. We 
proceeded up and down intervening ridges until we again 
found a ravine with a small stream at its bottom, down the bed 
of which our path lay. At half-past one we reached Chien 
Peng Tse (" Potash Sheds "), where, in a pleasingly clean 
cottage, kept by a Roman Catholic, we ate our mid-day meal, 
reclining awhile afterwards on a heap of chaff in the corner for 
a short siesta. Then on down the stream which here had 
already cut itself a walled-in channel in the limestone, till we 
reached the hamlet of Leng Chu Ping (" Cool Bamboo Flat "), 
and, passing through a short covered-in street, with about 
half a dozen houses on either side of the narrow pathway, 
we came in view of Huang Mu Chang. There it stoot', on 
a charming wide green slope backed by a range of mountains 
which bounded the view before us ; it appeared to be two or 
three miles off, and we congratulated ourselves, saying that for 
once the natives had not under-estimated the distance. The 
hamlet, viewed from this point, appeared beautifully situated 
on its broad green slope, with groves scattered here and there, 
' looking towards the huge cliffs of Lololand, which fall sheer 
into the waters of the Tung river, here invisible ; while the 
blue smoke of the mid-day fires ascended into the calm sun-lit 
sky. We walked briskly on, when all at once we were brought 
up short by a ravine about 1000 feet deep, between whose 
vertical walls flowed a deep rapid torrent coming from the high 
range on our right. A 500-feet long suspension bridge would 
have spanned the chasm and saved many miles of precipitous 
road ; but there was no bridge, and we had to turn aside to the 
right up the left bank of the ravine. Here a dangerous 
mountain path led us up to the head of the ravine, then a 
sharp descent to a spot where the river came tumbling down 
the mountain in a series of magnificent cascades at the foot of 



Digitized by 



Google 



ANCIENT LOLOLAND 137 

which was a narrow bridge. Crossing this we ascended by a 
still worse path on the opposite bank,; the path leading in 
places along the sides of the precipice, across small gaps 
bridged over by a couple of fir-trees with straw laid over them 
to give a securer footing ; then mounting the summit of a cliff 
200 or 300 feet up a steep narrow path ; then down again the 
same distance ; and so up and down continually. At length we 
left the ravine and mounted on to a plateau which sloped 
gently up to the range of steep mountains which fence it in on 
the north and west. To the south and east it ends abruptly in 
a ravine, whose vertical cliffs, over 1000 feet deep, follow down 
the stream we had just crossed to its junction with the great 
Tung River, some six miles distant, on the further right bank 
of which rise the stupendous cliffs that guard the mountains of 
the unconquered Lolo. It was now sunset, and having toiled 
all day up and down the steepest of mountain paths, we were 
not sorry to finish over the mile or more of level ground, 
through narrow paths winding amongst tall maize, which at 
length landed us in the single, narrow, dirty street, which 
forms the " Chang " or market-town of Huang Mu. We put 
up at a dilapidated but tolerable inn, got our supper at nine 
o'clock, and turned in immediately afterwards, both dead-beat. 
August 28. — A perfect summer's day, a thick white mist in 
the early morning hiding the expanse of maize-fields upon 
which the back windows of our inn looked out. A deliciously 
fragrant air and the thermometer at 6o°, the elevation of Huang 
Mu Chang being just 6050 feet above sea level. We enjoyed 
a breakfast of bread and our delicious honey and cold spring 
water, and thought this the most bracing air we had yet 
experienced, therefore, as the morrow was market-day, we 
made up our minds to rest and enjoy ourselves for a couple of 
days on this charming plateau. We called on the amiable 
young priest, who presides over the Catholic Mission here as 
at that at Ta Tien Ch'ih, where he had 'already lent us his 
house, and were much interested in the neat well-kept range 
of Chinese buildings, which form a striking contrast to the 



Digitized by 



Google 



138 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

dirty town on the edge of which they stand. They comprise 
a chapel and separate schools for boys and girls — the former a 
boarding-school — the whole standing in a well-furnished garden 
surrounded by a high wall. The parish is a wide one, hence 
the need of a boarding-school, as also of a very fine mule on 
which the priest makes his visitations. He had kindly invited 
us to stay with him, taking for granted that we were a couple 
of Protestant missionaries, but on finding a lady was of the 
party very regretfully withdrew his invitation. To our regret, 
too, as charming though the place was, our inn was not one to 
linger at. Numerous groves of fine trees are dotted about the 
plateau, giving it a park-like appearance, and with our spy-glass 
we noticed herds of cattle grazing in the distance, the whole 
scene being markedly non-Chinese. This is explained by the 
fact that the bulk of the inhabitants are still Lolo— tame 
Lolo — and under Chinese rule, but free from the tree-destroying 
mania that pervades all the Chinese immigrants into these 
western mountains. One very fine and extensive grove of large 
trees, one of those said to have been set apart for burning their 
dead, situated on a rocky elevation overlooking the ravine of 
the stream whose head waters we had crossed the evening 
before, attracted our attention, and, taking our luncheon and 
books, we spent a most delightful day under its shade. The 
air was that of England on a fine day in June, the shade 
maximum rose to just seventy, and a glorious breeze was blowing. 
The views were grand in the extreme ; immediately in front, 
the wall-like boundary of independent Lolo-land — a precipice 
of fully 4000 feet falling into the Tung, with steep green slopes 
and lofty peaks rising beyond until lost in clouds ; while at our 
feet rose the rugged rocks and pinnacles of limestone which 
formed the right bank of the torrent we had taken four hours 
to cross from one bank to the other. Blackberries and straw- 
berries abounded, and the scattered farms were hidden in 
groves of walnut and other fruit trees. Walking back through 
the fields, the views were entirely shut out by the maize which 
here flourishes in great luxuriance. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ANCIENT LOLOLAND 139 

This lofty mountain mass that bounds our southern horizon, 
squared off by huge vertical apparently inaccessible precipices, 
still awaits the explorer. Its area, according to Baber, is about 
1 1,000 square miles. It is called here the " Ta Liang Shang," 
Great Ridge Mountains, " a designation which does not mean 
any particular peak or peaks, or special range, but applies to the 
whole Lolo region, a district mountainous throughout, and con- 
taining a few summits which over-top the limit of perpetual 
snow." From the Yunnan side, looking northwards, it is an 
equally conspicuous object, and it is called there the Taiyang 
Chiao — " Sun Bridge " — surely a magnificent name and not 
inappropriate; the setting sun traversing the crown of the 
portentous causeway. One of our chair coolies, whom we 
brought from Chunking, a very good-tempered useful fellow, 
who has been for some years soldiering in these parts, tells 
us thrilling stories of the valour and audacity of those 
mountaineers, and makes us long to see them, and, as to- 
morrow is market day, when Lolos come in to the fair, we 
determine to halt another day in this, one of the dirtiest of 
villages, but, by nature, one of the most perfect spots for a 
summer residence possible to conceive. The wide plateau, 
which ranges from six to seven thousand feet above the sea, 
yields ample space for riding or walking over gently undulating 
ground. Woods of fine trees afford thick shade ; the ground is 
well drained by the Tung river, flowing in a chasm four thousand 
feet below, and the surrounding mountains are far enough off 
not to obstruct the breeze, as was the case in the narrow valleys 
in which we had hitherto halted. Our ramshackle inn was 
crowded with visitors who had come in for to-morrow's fair, and 
who kept up a talking and shouting nearly all through the night. 
Wine is as cheap as tea and in much more common use in these 
mountains. 

August 29. — Market day. The long single-street village 
was jammed with people Salt seemed to be the principal 
article of traffic ; lumps, looking like chunks of dirty red sand- 
stone, showing well-defined marks of stratification, lay on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



i 4 o MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

stone curbs of the gutters reeking with black slime, and were 
divided up by choppers according to the wants of the purchasers. 
All this salt is carried on their backs, over the mountains, by 
porters from Tse Liu Ching. But the chief point of attraction 
for us was the temple courtyard at the entrance to the town,. 

\ where the Lolo women mostly congregated, busily chaffering 
over the baskets of produce, chiefly buckwheat and peas, which 
they had brought in for sale. They were so intent upon their 
work that we were able to mix in the crowd, edging our way 

; through the compact masses, and to examine them closely. 
They were fine, sturdy, rosy-cheeked lasses, with round laugh- 
ing faces, natural feet, of course, and the carriage of women who 
will walk their forty miles a day over mountain paths at five 
miles an hour, and a grace of attitude most pleasing to look upon. 
They are dressed somewhat differently from Chinese women, in 
tight leggings and a long coat gracefully looped up behind into 
the wide girdle, the legs tightly bandaged round from the ankle 
to the knee upwards with blue calico ; a black band with silver 
ornaments round the forehead or more generally voluminous 
white turban completing the costume. But when the camera 
was produced, the excitement compelled us to take refuge upon 
the stage which projects into the courtyard of all these temples, 
from whence the crowd could gaze at us undisturbed, while 
we were able to photograph them in full front. We made a 
purchase of some buckwheat from one of the best-looking girls, 
or rather matrons, which we had ground, and which furnished us 
a fine supper of buckwheat cakes, eaten with the delicious local 
honey. The fair seller we invited to come and take tea with us 
at our hotel when market was over, and, when the time came, by 
strong insistence, upon our "boy" fetching them in, we were 
visited by two of the women accompanied by their husbands, 
big, bony dark-skinned wrinkled-faced men of upright carriage 
and resolute bearing. The crowd of ever curious Chinese, whom 
it was impossible to keep from pressing in upon our party, 
prevented our learning much from the interview. The men had 
brought in cattle for sale and were now returning home with 



Digitized by 



Google 



ANCIENT LOLOLAND 141 

their small purchases. They spoke a little Chinese and roughly 
imitated the Chinese forms of politeness. As the market broke 
up, it was interesting to see the Lolo men ride off on their 
shaggy ponies, dressed in sheepskin jackets, with the paper 
parcels containing their purchases stuck in their hair, and many 
of them the worse for liquor. Of the women, some rode, always 
astride, while others followed on foot at a swinging gait behind 
their lords and masters. By sunset the village had resumed 
its normal state of quietude, and we were able to pack up and 
make our preparations for an early start on the morrow. 

August 30. — Off at daylight, in thick fog, which at 8 o'clock 
changed to rain. Our path lay along the foot of the serrated range 
which hemmed* in the wide valley on the north and west, and : 
which we crossed at noon by a pass 1500 feet above Huang Mu 
Chang. While skirting the edge of the range, previous to 
ascending the steep zigzag path that led up to Malie-shan, as 
the rest-house at the summit was named, we had to cross 
several of those provoking ravines that bar all the roads here- 
abouts, descending 200 feet by a rough, slippery path down 
the face of a cliff, crossing a diminutive stream, and then a 
similar ascent on the opposite side. If being thus constantly 
baulked in the approach to one's immediate destination was 
annoying to us walking empty handed (kutig shou, as the 
Chinese call it), what must it be to the troops of laden coolies 
who, in Central and Southern China, carry on all the traffic 
where, as here, water routes are not available ? At the top of 1 
the pass was a salt octroi, where each salt porter had to pay a 
tax of fourteen cash on his load. We found out most of these 
poor coolies were dealers on their own account, buying the salt 
in Kiating to resell it in Fulin— our destination for the night. 
The profit they make gives them about 100 cash a day (three- 
pence) besides their food of maize damper (pa-pa), costing about 
half that sum. They carry about a hundredweight, and make 
from 8 to 10 miles a day. But they are long miles, as we 
discovered when we halted for tiffin, upon being told that we 
had only come 30 /*'. We were now 7500 feet up, and were 



Digitized by 



Google 



142 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

bound for the large town of Fulin, on the banks of the Tung. 
We went up and down, crossing three passes, all enveloped in 
mist, and saw nothing but the rough path, cut out in big, irregular 
steps in the coarse red sandstone rock, and the thick bushes of 
arbutus, rhododendron, blackberry, and other shrubs which lined 
the path and covered us with their drippings. Turning the 
corner of a ravine, at length, at 3 p.m., a rift in the clouds dis- 
closed the rich, hilly vale of Fulin, 5000 feet below, with its two 
rivers glittering in the sunshine, the horizon bounded by the 
high mountains beyond the Tung river, forming the Tibetan 
border — one of those grand extensive views that amply repay 
the toil of reaching them — as beautiful as it was unexpected. 
Continuing down the steep slippery path, we reached in an 
hour the market town of Ma Lie Chang, crowded and filthy. 
It was market day and we hurried through, not without the too 
polite attention of the more rowdy portion of the populace. 
These market towns in Szechuan are the flies in the honey to 
the foreign tourist : everybody comes in from all the country 
round, more for pleasure — skwe, as they call it here — than for 
business, and the stranger passing through, especially a foreign 
woman striding along, is usually looked upon as fair game. It 
is impossible to avoid these places and go round, as the only 
practicable path leads straight through the crowd. On approach* 
ing them we used to form up in close order, putting our bravest 
coolie, an old soldier, in front to shout out and clear the way. 
the rest following in single file, all stepping out as fast as we 
could, and thankful if, on making our exit from the long street, 
which often used to seem interminable, clods of earth were not 
added to the cabbage stalks with a volley of which we were on 
more than one occasion saluted, when the mob of shouting 
hoodlums cared to follow us no further. As far as Omi we 
had had our chairs, and so suffered comparatively little annoy- 
ance ; but on foot it is humiliating to one's European pride to 
have to confess that the "heir of all the ages " inspires no respect 
whatever. We had dismissed the official escort that accom- 
panied us as far as Tatienchih, as we found them absolutely 



Digitized by 



Google 



ANCIENT LOLOLAND 1+3 

useless for protection, always disappearing when any trouble 
arose, and if ever asked about us, probably saying, " I know 
not the man." Our own coolies whom we had brought from 
Chungking stood by us well, and were as indignant as we were, 
and, I am convinced, would have helped us to fight the mob 
had we cared to lead them on or thought it advisable to do sc% 
Apart from this, and whenever we could obtain a hearing, we 
were always treated with great civility, but these wretched 
markets have no resident mandarins, and the occasion is one 
for free drinking. The fox, they say, gets used to being 
hunted, and we ultimately accepted the chang as all in the 
day's work. 

The fine bracing air of the highlands over which we had 
climbed in the morning, and which seemed to dissipate all sense 
of fatigue, now gave place to the close atmosphere of the shut- 
in valley, and the heavy odour of the paddy-fields down through 
which the path now wound ; the thermometer quickly jumped 
from 6o° to 8o° and we once more, after a fortnight's interval, 
found ourselves in the close hot-house air that distinguishes 
this moist province. The vegetation again resumed its Szechuan 
luxuriance ; well-built roomy farmsteads, white plaster with the 
black beams showing through, circled by wide-spreading eaves, 
and approached through heavily roofed gateways, lay dotted 
about, surrounded by groves of large handsome fruit-trees. 
Forests of the tung or varnish tree covered the lower slopes of 
the mountains, the upper peaks covered with scrub and pine 
until lost in the clouds. Down, down went the stony path 
through terraced paddy-fields over strata of shales, sandstones, 
crimson and purple, here tilted almost vertical, to Peh-ngai-Ho 
White Cliff River, which we reached at sunset, finding ourselves 
once more only 2300 feet above sea level Upon one of the 
many huge blocks of sandstone strewn about the valley — almost 
a perfect cube — stood a small temple, embowered in trees, the 
approach to which was by a steep winding staircase cut out of 
the rock. Though late, and with still some distance to go, we 
could not forbear, notwithstanding the remonstrances of our 



Digitized by 



Google 



144 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

attendants, halting to set up the camera and bring away a record 
of this picturesque object And so it was, with hardly enough 
.' light to see our way across, that we reached the river — a foaming 
. torrent of clear water, flowing over a shingly bed in many 
channels — the smaller of which we forded, crossing the main 
channel on a wooden cantilever un-railed-in bridge, about 30 
feet long by 1 foot wide, at which we jibbed not a little at first. 
This was the nearer of the two parallel rivers we had caught a 
glimpse of from above, the city of Fulin being on the banks of 
the second river ; we now, to our surprise, found that a steep 
ridge, about 500 feet high, separated us from this, our proposed 
destination, and, as it was now quite dark, we had to seek our 
night's shelter at a small wayside wipe-shop, a hundred feet or 
so above the river. It was nearly nine o'clock before we got 
our table spread in the roadway, before the inn, and ate our 
supper by the light of a home candle (an indispensable require- 
ment) which burned without a flicker in the still summer air. 
A stream of water gushed out of the rock opposite, providing a 
delicious drink, besides musical accompaniment — and we felt 
happy, notwithstanding the mosquitoes and the inevitable 
odours. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER X 

THE THIBETAN BORDER 

Fulin — Chien Chang Valley — Tung River — Coffins promised before 
Starting — ShihTa Kai's Mistake — His Army's Destruction — Szechuan 
saved from Tai-pings — No Ponies! — Vegetation — Damage done by 
Rains — Cataracts of Stones — Dragons' Eggs not destroyed — Pack- 
Mule killed on the Spot— River of Purple Mud— Steep Rock Stair- 
case — Pleasant Resting-place— Mud River — Thinking of turning 
back — Twenty Bags — Crossing a Stream in Spate — Girls gathering 
Wax— Pony and Mule at last — Dangerous Washout — Itu : old Fron- 
tier City — Gorgeous Inn. 

August 31. — After our long ninety It of yesterday and the 
drawback of making a start in heavy rain, all our bedding and 
packages having to be carefully enveloped in oiled paper, it was 
nearly seven before we were under way. The ascent was very 
steep, but the land on either side richly cultivated and the path 
well shaded by the tung, orange and other fruit trees. Crossing 
the narrow summit, we descended on the other side by very 
rough rock-hewn steps, covered with slippery red mud, down 
which it was wonderful how our laden coolies made their way 
at all — until at nine, after passing some rich suburban gardens, 
we trudged into the long wide main street of the. notable 
frontier town and wide distributing centre, Fulin. The rich 
valley in which it stands and its comparatively large transit 
trade combine to make Fulin one of the most prosperous towns 
in China. The shops were good, the people well dressed, and 
even the wa-warh (children) not uncivil. We enjoyed a good 
breakfast here in a clean, much-frequented tea-shop and sent 



Digitized by 



Google 



146 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

out to hire ponies, as the weather was too hot for walking. 
Fulin stands on the banks of the Liu-sha Ho, "Flowing Sand 
River/' well named, as it is a broad, shallow stream of liquid red 
mud and sand, in character not unlike the Platte river below 
Denver, in Colorado. This curious-looking stream, wide and 
shallow, falls into the deep, narrow and pellucid Tung a couple 
of miles below the city; and beyond the Tung, to the west, lies 
Thibet. To the south is a cleft in the mountains giving access 
to the renowned Chienchang valley, Marco Polo's "Ciandu," 
through which runs the fortified highway — the Lolos on one 
side and the Menia tribes on the other, which connects Western 
Szechuan with Tali Fu, the western capital of the province of 
Yunnan. Here we have a narrow strip of richly cultivated land, 
running 150 miles north and south, occupied by peaceable 
Chinese agriculturists and soldier colonists, hemmed in on 
either side by wild aborigines leading a pastoral life, and to 
whom the timid prosperous Chinaman affords a natural prey. 
Petty warfare a la Chinoise appears to be constantly going on 
here, and our soldier coolie tells us how, five years ago, his 
General's wife was carried off and held captive two years 
before she was ransomed and returned, he says, unhurt. The 
men whom they kidnap, if able-bodied, are made to work at 
what little agriculture they care to pursue, and, if past work, 
are left to starve. This Chienchang valley is additionally 
famous as the breeding-place of the wax insect, whence the 
larvae are transported annually by running couriers, travelling 
only by night, to their rearing homes on the ash trees round 
Kiating. That delightful explorer Baber, who, coming from 
the north-west, traversed Fulin at right angles to our course, 
thus describes the Tung river at this spot : — 

A mile or so further (beyond Fulin) we came upon the Ta-tu 
river, at this point 2200 feet above the sea level, running in a very 
rapid stream, about 180 yards broad. The Liu-sha enters it through 
a wide shingle flat, not much less than a square mile in extent The 
main river sweeps in a grand curve from beneath a line of precipices 
3000 feet above its waters, and after clearing the shingle, plunges 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 147 

into a narrow gorge and makes its way eastward, past bluffs which 
ultimately rise, at Mount Wa, to not much less than the height of 
the Suicides' Cliff of Mount Omi. 

The Ta-tu, or to adopt its more general name, the Tung, should 
be regarded as the main upper stream of the Min river, since it 
brings down a much greater volume of water than either of the two 
confluents which join it near Kiating. At Luting bridge, one of the 
narrowest points, its breadth is a little under one hundred yards, but 
it is not navigable above Tz'tati ; even below that town there are 
so many rapids and obstructions that the waterway is little used. 
Between Fulin and Sha Ping it is only practicable for the whole 
distance for timber rafts, which are floated down to Kiating for sale: 
but the danger of the transit is so imminent that the owners of the 
timber have to bind themselves to provide the raftsmen with coffins 
in case of fatal accidents. Below Sha Ping there is no difficulty. A 
wilder or more broken region than that which borders the Tung can 
scarcely be conceived. There are few reaches which are not overhung 
by bare cliffs, often of immense height ; and yet here and there, in 
nooks between the mountain spurs, lie small cultivated glens which 
are models of secluded and tranquil beauty. In such spots opium 
grows to great excellence ; the flowers are mostly red, though the 
Chinese poppy in other districts is generally white. Nothing relieves 
the monotony of grey crags so gaily as a field of red and purple 
poppies. Wantung is a favourable instance of such dells, but if 
the traveller turns his back upon the river anywhere near that point 
and ascends the hills on the right bank, an hour's walk will carry 
him away from cultivation ; a day's journey will bring him into the 
thick pine forests, and after clearing these he may climb for another 
day, or longer, to the summit of mountains 17,000 feet above the 
sea. The Thibetan road, vid Ta Chian Lu, crosses this range by a 
pass which, according to Captain Gill, is 14,500 feet above sea-level 

We, however, did not cross the Ta-tu (Great Ferry) or Tung 
river at Fulin, which would have landed us in the nondescript 
region of Chienchang, but kept on our way up the left bank to 
join the celebrated solitary bridge which spans the torrent at 
Luting Chiao (bridge). It was across here that an end was 
put to the audacious invasion of Szechuan by the Taipings in 
the year 1863, an invasion which, but for the happy accident of 



Digitized by 



Google 



148 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the famous leader Shih Ta-k'ai mistaking the road, would 
probably have led to the conquest of the province, and so to a 
totally different conclusion to this formidable and sanguinary 
contest. The fate of Shih Ta-k'ai's bold incursion into these 
wild regions is so dramatic, and the chapter of accidents that 
so often upsets the best-made military calculations so striking 
that, now we are on the very spot, I cannot forbear quoting a 
condensed extract from the official report contained in the 
memoirs of Lo Ping Chang, Governor-General of Szechuan, 
of which Baber has given us a translation and of which he 
remarks :— 

The main facts are unquestionably authentic, but the story is, of 
course, written from the Imperial point of view, which regards all 
opponents as bandits and miscreants, who can hardly hope to escape 
condign vengeance. 

It is therefore vain to expect from it any trustworthy indication of 
the plan of campaign which guided Shih Ta-k'ai in making these 
extraordinary detours, or any faithful account of the causes which 
brought about so complete a disaster ; but from inquiry along his 
line of route I am satisfied that the explanation is not far to seek. 
The cause of his action was his inability to cross the Yangtze at or 
near Suifu. The neighbourhood of the H£ng river is a barren region 
of rocks and ravines, which his large force must very soon have 
" eaten up.' 1 Leaving out of the question the Imperialist statement, 
which does not deserve much credit, of his defeat in that district, it 
is evident that his supplies must soon have failed, and that he could 
not have long maintained his position. Under such circumstances 
a sudden march upon Ch'&ng Tu by Hu Li Chou and Chien Cheng 
offered several advantages. It would at the outside have the appear- 
ance of an acceptance of defeat and of a retreat into Yunnan, thus 
putting the Imperialists off their guard ; it would be a march through 
an undefended district, and by the sudden return up the Chiench'ang 
Valley, Yachow would be surprised, and the approaches to the capital 
of the province and its fertile plain carried without much difficulty. 
The superfluous and less efficient part of the rebel forces was there- 
fore sent on an expedition into Kuiechou, and, with the view of 
drawing'off the Imperial troops, Lai's command was ordered to advance 
through Chien-ch'ang. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 149 

Curiously enough, it was the very inactivity and unreadiness of 
the provincial government which defeated these promising tactics. 
Lai's division, so far from drawing off Imperialist attention, took the 
Governor-General by surprise, and passed through almost without 
molestation. So unimpeded was their march that I heard of cases 
where the main body turned back deliberately to avenge insignificant 
attacks upon stragglers in their rear. Not until Lai had entered 
Chienchang did the Governor-General surmise that his capital was 
exposed to be taken in reverse by such a movement. The dispositions 
described in his memorial were in reality made to stop Lai's passage, 
but came all too late for that purpose, though in the nick of time to 
prevent Shih Ta-k'ai's advance, which was quite unexpected. It was 
then only necessary to close the pass (about two yards wide) which 
leads from Luku to Yuehsi, thus forcing Shih Ta-k'ai's army to ascend 
the main valley, at that point alluringly broad and easy, to Min Ning 
Hsien, and so to become gradually involved in the inextricable gorges 
which border the Tung. If the river could be held, the rebel force 
must then inevitably perish from mere starvation. 

Only a personal knowledge of the country and of the tribes which 
inhabit it could have enabled the rebel chfef to foresee these dangers. 
He was utterly ignorant of such details. He probably expected that 
the Lolos and Sifans would join him or remain neutral, or, as is more 
likely, with the usual conceit of the Chinese, who esteem themselves 
the only fighting people in the world, made little account of their 
opposition. But it is certain that all the credit of his crushing defeat 
and surrender is due to these hill tribes, who fought purely for their 
own hand, and, with their exact knowledge of the local defiles and 
approaches, easily cut off the rebel supplies, and then made short 
work of the blockaded starvelings. In the Governor-General's me- 
morial, cannon, musketry and rockets play a conspicuous part ; but 
from all I could learn from the natives the battles were mostly con- 
ducted with such primeval artillery as bows and arrows, stones, rocks, 
and tree-trunks. 

In January 1863, after having been routed in a series of engage- 
ments on the H€ng river (the stream which enters the Yangtze on its 
right bank between Sui-fu (Suchow) and P'ingshan), Shih Ta-k'ai, the 
most ferocious and crafty of the rebel kings, formed his troops into 
three divisions, one of which he sent from Fukuan-ts'un into the pro- 
vince of Kueichou. (With this division we are not further concerned.) 



Digitized by 



Google 



150 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

His lieutenant, Lai Yuh-sin, was despatched into Chien Ch'ang with 
the second division, Shih Ta-k'ai himself intending to follow with the 
main body. Lai's corps of 30,000 or 40,000 men accordingly marched 
to Hui Li Chou (by what route does not appear), and thence to 
T6 Ch'ang, where a great many recruits were gained among the 
opium porters and disorderly characters of the neighbourhood. 
They reached Ning Yuan Fu on March 16, but were defeated next 
day, with a loss of 2000, by an Imperialist force. Still pressing on, 
they made an unsuccessful assault upon Mien Shan on the 21st, and 
were again worsted at Yueh Hsi T*ing, losing their leader, Lai Yu-hsin, 
who was killed by a Lolo with a stone. Hurrying forward in great 
disorder, they crossed the T'ung on the 26th, and continued onwards 
by Ching Ch'ihsien and Jung Ching Hsien into Tien Ch'uan country, 
through which they passed into Northern Szechuan. 

(There they seem to have dispersed, whether of their own 
intent, or in consequence of repeated attacks, is not clear; but 
it is fairly certain that a large proportion made off into Shensi 
and Kansu.) 

Shih Ta-k'ai, " careless of distance or danger, and always on 
the watch for an opening/' had sent forward this division to 
divert attention from his own movements, expecting, it was 
presumed, that the Imperialist forces would follow in hot 
pursuit, without looking to their rear or concerning themselves 
with the possible advance of a second rebel corps. The 
Governor-General, Lo Ping-chang, however, foresaw the 
design, and made dispositions to frustrate it. In his memorial 
on the subject he remarks that " the importance of occupying 
all the approaches from Chien Ch'ang became evident The 
Tung river, the natural protection of the south-western 
frontier, rising in the country of the Tien Ch'uan tribes, runs 
through the Yot'ung region, past the »Wassu Ravine and 
Luting Bridge, into the L£ng Pien * and Shta Pien districts, 
traverses the magistrature of Ching Ch'i, and then enters the 
Lolo territory. We had, therefore, to guard the line from An 

* Ling Pien and ShH Pien are Tu-ssu districts, respectively north and south 
of Hnalin Ping. Shen Ping contains very few aborigines. Yut'ong is a tribe 
of the Tang valley, a little above Wassukou. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 151 

Ch'ing Pa* to Wan Kung, a length of more than 200 /i, 
including thirteen ferries, exposed to an advance both by the 
Yueh Hsi.road and the track via Mien Ning Hsien. And besides 
this, it was indispensable to hold the line from Luting Bridge 
to Wan Kung, since there are many places at which the rebels 
might have crossed the Tung, supposing them to have pre- 
viously passed the Sung Lin-affluent ; a wide flanking move- 
ment in that direction would have enabled them to gain the 
T'ien Ch'uan country." 

A detachment was accordingly sent, under Tang Yu-keng, to act 
between Anch'ing Pa and Wan Kung ; and Wang, chief of a thousand 
families in the Sunglin district, was directed to keep the Sunglin 
affluent with his aboriginal forces, with a view to prevent a turning 
movement upon Luting Bridge and Hua Ling Ping. Another de- 
tachment was stationed in reserve between Hua Ling Ping and 
Wassu Ravine ; and, lastly, a corps was posted at Mo Sin Mien to 
stop any advance upon Ta Chien Lu. 

Lai's band had by this time escaped into Shensi. After measures 
had been taken to cut off their return, the Lola chief Ling was 
directed to occupy the Yueh Hsi passes, so as to prevent ShihTa-k'ai 
from entering the Lolo territory. Presents were at the same time 
distributed among Ling's Lolos and the aboriginal troops of " Thou- 
sand Family" Wang to encourage and stimulate their zeal. 

Tang Yu-keng's force reached the Tung on May 12, Shih Ta-k'ai 
having in the meanwhile crossed the Upper Yangtze at Liang-Pa, 
entered Chien-Ch'ang, and found the Yueh Hsi main road blocked, 
took the alternative route by Mien Ning Hsien, and so descended 
on the 15th, with 30,000 or 40,000 men, upon the village of Tzu Ta 
Ti, in the district governed by "Thousand Family" Wang, at the 
confluence of the Sung Lin with the Tung. During the night both 
streams rose several yards in consequence of heavy rain, rendering 
the passage dangerous, and the rebels began to construct rafts. 
They made a reconnaisance of the crossing on the 17 th, and on the 
21st sent down a party 4000 or 5000 strong, carrying " several tens " 
of boats and bamboo rafts, upon each of which " several tens " of the 

* An Ch'ing Pa is a fertile plateau and village on the left bank of the Tung, 
opposite Tsztati, two or three miles inland. Wan Kung is an insignificant 
hamlet a few miles east of the ferry below FuUn. 



Digitized by 



Google 



152 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

most desperate embarked as a forlorn hope, covered by shields, and 
advanced to force the crossing. The whole army came out of their 
huts to support them from the bank, and cheered them on with 
howls which echoed down the gorges like peals of thunder. Our 
men, however, stood fast ; and when the enemy had reached mid- 
channel opened a steady fire, which killed several chiefs in red 
uniform and exploded a powder magazine on one of the rafts, hurling 
the rebels pell-mell into the water. A few rafts which had been 
carried away by the current were followed up from the bank and 
sunk, and not a soul of the attacking party escaped alive. 

Nevertheless, during the following night the rebels again recon- 
noitred the crossing, and appear to have satisfied themselves that it 
could not be carried. Thenceforward they confined their efforts to 
the passage of the Sunglin affluent, with the object of gaining Lu 
Ting Bridge and invading the Tien Ch'uan region ; but they were 
repulsed time after time by "Thousand Family" Wang, and lost 
several thousand men in the attempt 

On May 24 Ling, coming up with his Lolos from Yueh Hsi, fell 
upon the rear of the rebels near Hsin Ch'ang, and after repeated 
attacks captured their camp on Saddle Hill* on the night of the 19th. 
From that moment the rebel case became hopeless. After a futile 
attempt to gain over the native chiefs Wang and Ling, Shih Ta-k'ai, 
furious at finding himself involved in a situation from which escape 
was impossible, slaughtered 200 local guides as a sacrifice to his 
banners, and on the night of June 3 attempted to force the passage 
of the main river and of the affluent simultaneously. Both assaults 
were again repulsed. After killing and eating their horses, the rebels, 
now reduced to the last extremity of famine, were allaying their 
hunger by chewing the leaves of trees. Nevertheless, on June 9 they 
made another general attack upon the crossings, but all their rafts 
were either sunk or carried away down the swift current 

The end had come. " Thousand Family " Wang, reinforced by 
the Mo Sin Mien detachment, passed the Sunglin on June 1 1, and 
assaulted the rebel quarters at Tsz Ta Tis. At. the same time the 
Lolo auxiliaries, coming down from Saddle Hill, advanced upon the 
rear of the position, which was thus completely enveloped. Thou- 

* Saddle Hill (Ma Ngan Shan) is an eminence on the right bank of the 
Tung, a short distance below Tzu Tati. The village of Hsin Ch'ang lies on its 
western slope. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 153 

sands of the insurgents were killed in the actual attack, but all the 
approaches to the place being commanded by precipices and confined 
by defiles, the fugitives became huddled together in a dense mass, 
upon which the regulars kept up a storm of musketry and artillery, 
while the Lolos occupying the heights cast down rocks and trunks of 
trees, which crushed them into the river. More than 10,000 corpses 
floated away down the Tung. 

Shih Ta-k'ai, with 7000 to 8000 followers, escaped to Lao Wa 
Hsuan, where he was closely beset by the Lolos. Five of his wives 
and concubines, with two children, joined hands and threw them- 
selves into the river ; and many of his officers followed their example. 
As it was indispensable to capture him alive, a flag was set up at 
Hsi Ma Ku* displaying the words " Surrender, and save your lives," 
and on the 13th he came into the camp, leading his child, four years 
of age, by the hand, and gave himself up with his chief and followers. 
Some 4000 persons who had been forcibly compelled to join him 
were liberated, but the remaining 2000, all inveterate and determined 
rebels, were taken to Ta Shu Pu, where, on June 18, Government 
troops having been sent across the river for the purpose, a signal was 
given with rocket, and they were surrounded and despatched. 
Shih Ta-k'ai and three others were conveyed to Ch-£ng Tu on the 
25th, and put to death by the slicing process. The child was 
reserved until the age prescribed by regulation for the treatment of 
such cases. 

Those of us who remember the atrocities committed by the 
Taiping rebels around Shanghai in i860 and the devastation of 
the Yangtze valley, and almost total annihilation of its flourishing 
populations in that and the following years, until the rebellion 
was finally crushed by the capture of Nankin in 1864, will not 
be sorry that Shih Ta-k'ai's bold march met with the result it 
did, and that the fair lanjd of Szechuan was happily spared from 
the devastation that overwhelmed six of the other provinces, 
and those the richest of the eighteen which compose the empire. 
News is so long in travelling through this huge, invertebrate, 
inarticulate empire, and is so vague and indefinite when it does 
transpire, that it is not to be wondered at that the particulars of 

* Hsi Ma Ku lies on the Lao Wa River, some seven miles south of Lao Wa 
Hsuan. 



Digitized by 



Google 



iS4 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

this narrow escape from Taiping domination were hardly known 
in Shanghai until years after the rebellion had been finally 
suppressed. The historical interest of this great movement, 
analogous in its long duration and in its devastating effects, to 
the Thirty Years War in Germany, will never fail to attract 
students of human progress in this quarter of the globe ; nor is 
the wonderful way in which the lapse of one generation has 
almost effaced the traces of the calamity in the provinces 
ravaged less remarkable. Justice is seldom done to the Chinese, 
in appreciating their present condition, by bearing in mind the 
tremendous set-back government and people then suffered, and 
what a fearful waste of life and property has since had to be 
made good. 

Here in Fulin we were again exposed to disappointment; 
having met and passed so many porters all the way along, all 
carrying goods to Fulin, we had conceived a great idea of its 
importance, and thought there could be no difficulty about getting 
ponies there. But neither love nor money could obtain them, 
and nothing was left but to go on again afoot as before. The 
path led up through a very rich, almost level valley bounded on 
both sides by high mountains, through which meandered the 
red turbid waters of the Liusha, its bed nearly a mile wide. 
Paddy-fields filched from the river bed and laboriously walled 
round with shingle packed in long wicker-work baskets, like 
Brobdjgnagian sausages in shape, occupied the lower ground 
and ran up the side of the alley by each entering stream, 
Walled-in gardens of orange trees, with fields of maize, sugar- 
cane, peanuts, and cotton, filled the lower slopes : beyond these, 
groves of mulberry and varnish trees, and above all the jungle 
of dwarf oak, pine, and flowering shrubs which, in populated 
districts, is never permitted to grow up into decent-sized trees, 
being remorselessly mown down for firing by lads who carry a 
sickle in their hands and a pannier for the croppings they collect 
on their backs. The path was a paved one, but the many 
ravines proved serious impediments to our progress, and it was 
intensely hot, the mid-day sun shining in full force, with scarcely 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 15s 

a breath of air moving, so that we began to regret having ever 
quitted the cool mountain tops. The late heavy rains which we 
had experienced on Mount Omi and on the Washan, seemed to 
have fallen with intense violence in this valley, and each ravine 
that lay in our path was filled with an avalanche of rough 
angular fragments of all sizes, rolled down from the mountain 
peaks above. Ponds of sticky red mud lay in the interstices, 
and a dozen streamlets had to be forded in each ravine. The 
destruction had been too recent for any repairs to have [been 
made to the road, and we now began to realise why no one 
would hire out any animals. We had always scorned before the 
usual information that the roads were impassable, and so, 
apparently, our servants had in this instance withheld the real 
reason. Several of our coolies slipped off the natural stepping 
stones which [alone afforded a comparatively dry path, and our 
major-domo himself got in up to his waist in red mud and had 
to be hauled out, losing his shoes, which he afterwards replaced 
by straw sandals. It took us half the day to get over the fifteen 
h) so-called, to the pleasing, picturesque town of Lung Tung, 
("Dragon's Cave") where we took tiffin in a nice cool restaurant, 
a row of fine shade trees screening it from the glare of the 
river. Here we were able to hire three ponies for our two 
selves and our " boy," for the thirty It that remained to us of 
this da^s journey, for the sum of one hundred and sixty cash 
apiece (five pence) and set out again in high feather. But the 
road was frightfully bad. The mountain tops looked in many 
places as though their highest peaks had been rent by a volcanic 
explosion, bursting the walls of their craters and sending forth 
avalanches of stones and angular rock fragments, spreading out 
often at the foot of the peak into a cataract half a mile to a mile 
in width, of course destroying all the fields it had overflowed. 
No wonder the Chinese attribute these outbursts and sudden 
spates to the escape of a dragon from its lair ; it is difficult one's 
self to explain how water alone can, apparently, cause on the top 
of a mountain, eruptions of such violence. In China all natural 
calamities are piously attributed to the wickedness of the people 



Digitized by 



Google 



156 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and the shortcomings of the officials who, as is well known, 
never shrink from attributing such misfortunes to their own 
misdeeds in their reports to the Throne. Our boy informed us 
in the present instance that the dragon lays its eggs on the 
mountain tops, and that, further, over such a spot the snow 
never lies, so that, if only the officials would exercise due 
vigilance, they could trace these spots in the winter and have 
the eggs destroyed. Anyway, whatever the cause, the result, 
utterly disastrous to the farmer, is exceedingly inconvenient to 
the traveller. Crossing one of these ravines on our little sure- 
footed ponies, we narrowly escaped a serious accident We 
were in company with a train of pack-mules ; we had descended 
one side of a ravine a couple of hundred or more feet deep, and 
were cautiously threading our way up the recently made narrow 
slanting track that led up the almost vertical slope on the oppo- 
site side, when the new-made ground began to move in a spot 
my companion had happily passed over in safety. I whipped 
up my pony, and he nimbly scrambled over on to the safe 
ground, but a mule immediately behind me went rolling down, 
over and over, with the shifting shale which composed the wall 
of the ravine, and was instantly killed by falling on his back on 
the rocks at the bottom. I was thankful I was riding a pony 
and not a mule, as these latter invariably lose heart in a difficulty 
and do not respond to the call of their rider as does a high- 
spirited little pony. 

The muleteers had to set to and remake the road before the 
rest of their train could proceed. The path wound up and 
down, with the wide river of liquid purple mud still on our left, 
and steep conical mountains on our right. The rainfall must 
be enormous on these mountains, as we see from the series of 
great and sudden freshets that occur each summer in the 
Yangtze. Another marvel is that, with the annual recurrence 
of these freshets, and the masses of soil they displace, there 
should be any mountains left by this time. 

We quitted the Fulin valley by an extraordinarily steep 
staircase, the steps cut out of the solid rock — almost as high 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 157 

and steep as those of the great Pyramid, which it is mar- 
vellous that the pack animals can surmount at all — and 
entered the valley of Han Yuen, in the chto or chief town of 
which we were to spend the night. This place lies 1500 feet 
above Fulin, in an equally rich though less tropical valley, the 
fields running up the back of the sandstone strata, smooth, and 
tilted at an angle of about thirty degrees, admitting of easy 
cultivation. On the opposite side of the river rugged limestone 
mountains, with granite peaks behind, towering to the clouds, 
rose almost vertically. It was well before sunset as we rode 
our tired animals up the steps that formed the main street of 
the bright mountain town, and put up at the spacious, clean, 
fresh-painted inn of " Constant Affluence," finding ourselves 
3767 feet above sea level, and in the not uncomfortable 
temperature of 8o° Fahrenheit. 

September 1. — Set out at six on foot by a path gently 
ascending the valley, the mud river still on our left ; found it 
warm walking in the still sunshine, and were not sorry when 
the first twenty It came to an end and we sat down to a frugal 
breakfast of fried corn-cake and honey at the village of 
Ho Sho Sze, so named after the "Guard River Temple" at its 
entrance. Here we were told that at the town of Fu Chu, 
five It further, we should certainly be able to hire ponies, and 
so walked gaily on. We found Fu Chu Chang a most pleasant 
place to rest in from the sun ; the broad path between the 
river and the long single row of houses, that made up a town 
chiefly composed of inns and tea — or rather wine — houses, was 
shaded by fine trees weighed down by over-luxuriant creepers. 
Under these sat women with stalls of rice, blanc-mange, and 
other light refreshments, from one of whom we gratefully 
accepted a drink of deliciously cool water dipped from a pipkin 
at her side. We waited a long time, but again no ponies were 
obtainable, and we had to walk on. We now quitted the 
Sha Ho valley and turned up a narrow ravine to our right, 
scrambling along the steep right bank of a clear-water torrent 
entering from the north; on the opposite bank reddish cliffs, with 



Digitized by 



Google 



158 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

steep barren hills above. The air was still, and the sun beat 
hot off the rocks, so that we were glad to stop at two o'clock at 
the clean hamlet of Iwan Shui for tiffin, after which we took a 
siesta on the grass under the trees, while our men went 
searching for animals. They came back re infectd, and we 
determined to push on to Pan Chiu Ngai (precipice), which 
there was just time to reach before sunset. We crossed more 
stony ravines, forded a torrent of very cold water, the bridge 
over which had been carried away in the night, traversed 
another valley of angular rocks, a mile in extent, with streams 
of red mud flowing among them and into the main river, and 
amongst which our laden coolies floundered painfully— our boy 
again coming to condign grief. The prospect, however, as the 
setting sun threw the rough valley into shade, and lit up the 
red mountain tops on our right (the serene-looking progenitors 
of the avalanche at our feet), was wildly romantic — an uncanny 
spot in which to be benighted, a contingency with which at 
one time the interminable rocks, which we were forced to 
scramble over, seemed seriously to threaten us. At last we 
extricated ourselves from this valley of the shadow of death, 
and a short steep ascent brought us to a welcome inn situated 
at the top of a high cliff overhanging the river, our back 
affording a fine view of the opposite mountains. With five 
stages still before us to Ta Chien Lu over such tiring ground, 
we were seriously contemplating turning back here and crossing 
over to Ching Chi Hsien, two easy stages distant, and there 
joining the main Thibetan road, where both chairs and ponies 
should be obtainable — especially as, shortly after sunset, a mule 
train turned back to the inn and informed us that the road 
beyond was absolutely impassable. However, there was a very 
fine mule in the inn, and the landlord, a hale old man of eighty 
years, but almost quite deaf, promised to hire it us for the next 
stage, if we liked to try it, so we went to bed happy and 
tired. 

September 2. — In the morning, after we were packed up, and 
twenty "Norfolk Howards" — by the tale — had been extracted 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE THIBETAN BORDER 159 

from my pillow, we found the sod of the house reproving his 
grandfather for letting out the mule in such roads, and we 
reluctantly had to give it up while sending our men on in 
advance to report on the road and endeavour to procure animals. 
Meanwhile we determined to stay where we were, not sorry for 
the excuse of half a day's rest. We climbed down to the banks 
of the river, the bed of which is here about 100 yards wide, for 
a bath, and found it considerably swollen by the night's rain, but 
we soon discovered a quiet backwater in which to disport our- 
selves. The valley seemed practically unpeopled, and we 
enjoyed the luxury of being alone. Presently, however, a party 
of men appeared intent upon fording the stream, which they 
ultimately succeeded in doing, but it was a lengthy and some- 
what dangerous business. Tying their scanty clothing round 
their heads, four men set out hand in hand carefully wading 
through the foaming waters ; arrived at the deepest part, half 
a dozen strokes landed them again in wading depth on the 
other side, but not before they had been carried a quarter 
of a mile in all down river. The two stronger, who were 
evidently picked men with a thorough knowledge of the channel 
then recrossed and so gradually conveyed the whole of the 
party over. We felt somewhat anxious as we watched them, as the 
river was nothing but a succession of waterfalls and rapids, and 
although a fair swimmer myself I should never have dared to 
attempt it The sun now came out warm, and we were glad 
to return to our inn and recline under the trees that embowered 
the little village. We here watched girls gathering the coating 
of insect wax off a kind of camellia tree and, examining the wax, 
found it full of small chrysalises underneath. By noon our men 
returned with a sorry mule and a diminutive pony of about ten 
hands, so after tiffin we proceeded on our way ; the road lined 
with small white daturas, while pomegranates were exposed on 
the wayside stalls. We crossed four dangerous washouts, over 
which we had to dismount and let our animals, surefooted as they 
were, be carefully led ; crossed a small level valley, composed 
of huge angular detritus floating apparently in a sea of red mud, 



Digitized by 



Google 



160 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

inundating land which had once been paddy-fields, and at sun- 
set entered the important frontier town of Itu. 

Two miles below the town, which is picturesquely situated on 
a high bluff, there is an opening in the wall of mountains 
opposite, through which the river we had been ascending, and 
which the town overlooked, receives its chief affluent It is 
approached by an uncomfortable paved roadway of big round 
boulders, the same as here form the hedges of the maize 
fields to protect them from the ravages of the wild boar. This 
leads up through an archway and under one of those unique, 
and, for grace, matchless Chinese three-storied pavilions, into 
the wide main street of the little town. Over the arch are cut 
four large characters, once gilded, " Li Chow Hsi Chai," mean- 
ing, " Western fortress (lit. stockade) of the region of " Li " or 
" Black-haired." Here, not so long ago, was one of the out- 
posts of the Chinese against the Mantse, as the pastoral 
Thibetan tribes hereabouts are still called, whom the encroach- 
ing Chinese agriculturists are still steadily driving farther and 
farther west ; much as the North American Indians were pushed 
back by the colonising white man. We had ascended another 
2000 feet and were now once more in a pleasant temperature, 
being some 5000 feet above sea level. Our inn was a spacious 
building, with several courtyards, gorgeously painted and 
gilded, and was kept by a chUjen, or B.A., whose wife, with 
several lady friends, came to visit us after supper and prolonged 
their stay until we had to ask them to leave and allow us to 
retire for the night 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XI 

ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE INTO THIBET 

Ffei Yue Pass— Brick-Tea Carriers— Phoenix Flat— Tung River 
again — Cascade of Rocks — Buddha's Ear Precipice — Boundary 
between China and Thibet— Seven Waterfalls uniting— Frontier 
Town — Flowers by River Path— Luting Bridge — Men stationed to 
help Travellers across Bridge — Granite Mountains — Thibetan 
Villages — Thibetans — Letters to Dead Relations— Thibetan Names — 
Bullock Hide Coracle— Vertical Granite Wall— Tiled Temple Village 
— Tung now known as Golden Stream — Tarchendo Ravine — Thibetan 
Suspension Bridges — Arrival at Ta Chien Lu — Buttered Tea and 
Beefsteak. 

September 3. — Heavy showers aU night, and having a long 
da^s journey before us, started at six in heavy rain up a 
slippery, muddy ascent of 1000 feet, 15 It, to breakfast at a 
clean mountain hamlet called Kao Ch'iao, or " High bridge." The 
river flowed deep down below in a limestone gorge scarcely ten 
yards wide. As we looked back down on the prosperous- 
seeming town of Itu, we could see that its site was a plateau 
of red sandstone which here, as elsewhere, and especially at 
Hanchen, which we had traversed the day before, overlies the 
limestone. The strata appeared to run in the direction most 
usual in Szechuan, viz., N.E. and S.W., dipping N.W. at an 
angle of about 30 . Thirty-five It of continuous ascent, at last 
up an uninhabited grassy glen, the green hills on either side 
hidden in clouds, the bottom carpeted with an extraordinary 
profusion of wild flowers, and traversed by a small stream of 
ice-cold water. We tiffined at an isolated cottage, enjoying a 
drink from the cool spring opposite, and then commenced another 



Digitized by 



Google 



162 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

of those tiresome zigzag ascents in the clouds, over the Fei Yue 
Pass (" Fly beyond "), 9400 feet, beyond which lies the vale of 
Hualin and the Tung river. It was impossible to enjoy our usual 
tiffin, as the poor people where we halted at one o'clock had 
neither wood nor charcoal. We at last reached the summit drip- 
ping wet, the gap being enclosed by a ruinous guardhouse, partly 
unroofed, in which was an old man, the only survivor of the 
military guard once stationed here, whom we found crouching 
over a wood fire, whose warmth we were glad to share for a 
time while we boiled our thermometer, almost blinded by the 
wood-smoke. We made the height 9400 feet. We met very 
few people, only some brick-tea carriers — men, women, and 
children — the men carrying fifteen or sixteen mats of fifteen 
catties* each, and boys of ten or twelve three or four such mats. 
At about every 200 or 300 yards they stop and rest their loads 
on a crutch which they carry in their hands for the purpose, 
while they scrape the perspiration off their dripping bodies with 
a wisp of bamboo, worn as a bracelet. They make five or six 
miles a day over such ground as this, and are the most pitiful- 
looking objects one can conceive. The women, though in rags, 
had the healthy rosy complexions common to mountaineers, and 
wore broad white turbans. We met, however, few women, but 
many children. We now descended rapidly by a like path on 
the other side, and as soon as we got below the clouds enjoyed 
a wide view over the picturesque and finely wooded valley in 
which stands the imposing scarped plateau of Hua Ling Ping, 
well named " Phoenix Flat." A limpid torrent flows at the foot 
of its cliffs, and at the junction of the valley with a ravine oppo- 
site, through which flows an affluent in a narrow limestone 
gorge, stands a most elegant and beautifully situated monastery, 
surrounded by magnificent trees, and with a fine forest running 
up the mountain side at its back, the whole forming one of those 
exquisite wide pictures which are the despair of the photo- 
grapher. On our way the whole steep valley was, like so many 
others in this region, cut out of red sandstone, alternating with 
* A catty = iilbs. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 163 

strata of white limestone. Hua Ling Ping stands upon a flat- 
topped, quadrangular cliff, the walls, as is often the case in 
Chinese mountain towns, carried out to the edge and forming a 
crown to the cliff. We entered into a broad street, parade 
ground, or market-place — we did not find out which — and then 
turned off into the narrow main street, where we put up at a plain 
unpretentious, but perfectly comfortable inn. We had made 
75 mountain &', and had descended to 7000 feet. Here we met 
our first Lama, in a gown of old gold, covered by a cloak of 
crimson felt, and realised that we were now really on the 
Thibetan border. 

September 4. — The houses here are roofed with loose planks 
weighted with stones, so that it probably can blow here in winter, 
still as the air generally is in summer. Off in the cool morning, 
with the thermometer at 6o°, down a very steep crumbling path 
of loose shale, upon which it was not easy to keep one's footing. 
The path was very narrow, very steep, of crumbling shale, and 
broken up by lan4slides in all directions — down 2500 feet, 
along, sometimes high above, sometimes close alongside of, the 
ruddy, ever widening stream, and on to its junction with the 
mighty Tung, which we reached again after a fortnight's absence. 
We are now little over 4000 feet above the sea — we last stood 
on the banks of the Tung at Kin Kou Ho, 1700 feet above the 
sea ; thus the Tung falls 2500 feet in about 100 miles. A road 
cut in the cliffs which line its banks would give an easy, gradual 
ascent instead of the three high passes of over 9000 feet, besides 
innumerable lesser ones, which we have come over. We crossed 
the many channels of the wide delta of the stream — two or 
three square miles of big red, white and green boulders, a mile 
or so above the town of Shtag Ch6n, perched on a high flat 
composed of rocky detritus in the angle formed by the left bank 
of the Tung and that of its affluent. One of the customary 
temporary rickety bridges, formed of a couple of young fir- 
trees, propped on a pile of boulders at each end, rendered the 
main channel just passable; our pony was driven into the 
torrent by the men and urged to scramble through with shouts 



Digitized by 



Google 



164 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and missiles, thoroughly soaking the Chinese saddle and saddle- 
cloth, which they had neglected to remove. On reaching the 
opposite bank, a steep ascent of about 200 feet landed us on the 
top of a cliff overlooking the Tung, up the left bank of which our 
course now lay. The Tung here was a rushing body of milky, 
semi-transparent water, fully 100 yards wide, and, I should judge, 
20 feet deep, and flowing with a seven-knot current The narrow 
path follows the edge of the cliff overhanging the torrent, and as 
the animals usually carry packs, they have a habit of bearing away 
from the inside wall and walking on the extreme edge, which is 
appalling until one at last gets confidence in their sure-footedness. 
We made a hasty tiffin by the wayside, being anxious not to travel 
such roads by dusk, when, upon rounding a dangerous corner, high 
up above the river, a most extraordinary sight met our astonished 
gaze. The corner we had rounded formed the edge of a sort of 
recess, apparently scooped out by the river in the mountain side, 
about 200 feet back, and in a spot where the usual hard rock 
gave place to softer shale. A huge whirlpool filled the foot of the 
recess which it was now occupied in enlarging ; but its waste was 
being replaced by a steady fall of rock from above. For at the 
back of the recess a " mud " fall tumbled over the cliff, here, 
perhaps, a thousand feet high, bringing down with it a constant 
stream of rocks which bounded over the narrow footway and 
thence down the lower slope with a splash into the boiling 
river. We sat down on the rock at the corner and watched the 
spectacle entranced. We had been foretold all sorts of im- 
possible dangers, especially since the heavy rains, not excepting 
the famous Luting suspension bridge, the alleged fear of which 
led one of our Chung King chair-coolies to give up the journey ; 
but we were not prepared for running the gauntlet of such a 
cannonade as this. So we sat down and gazed. Is it possible, 
we said, that this phenomenon is constant, and, if so, how is 
the supply kept up ? Never having seen anything of the kind 
in our previous experience of mountainous countries, we should 
much have liked to climb up the mountain side, had it been 
possible, and thoroughly investigated the source of this extra- 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 165 

ordinary stream which flowed on so steadily with a calm per- 
sistence that entirely fascinated our gaze. But, unfortunately, 
we were not explorers in the real sense of the term, and could 
not afford to loiter by the way and miss our daily stages. 
Presently some coolies came along, and we watched with intense 
interest to see how they would proceed. The path was not a 
foot wide, and, in fact, only retained as a path at all by the 
traffic over it, by which a way was trodden in the shaly slope as 
fast as it dribbled away. A big rock lined the inside of the 
track on one side of the fall, and under the lee of this the men 
crouched, watched for an exceptionally heavy shower, and then, 
when this was over, made a bolt for it. This manoeuvre was 
methodically repeated by each individual, who was greeted by 
the laughter of his companions as he successfully ran the 
gauntlet. The stones were all angular, and varied in size from 
that of a walnut to a pumpkin, while the great height from 
which they fell rendered them doubly dangerous. We sat 
nearly an hour watching before we made up our minds to 
venture on, and should certainly not have then had the courage 
to do so had we not seen the natives pass with impunity. So 
we went on and stood under the sheltering rock on the very 
edge of this novel cascade. The muddy, stone-laden stream 
made a loud, rattling, grating noise as it carried the smaller 
stones along with it in its hurried course : the larger rock 
fragments came bounding down in huge leaps as they crashed 
by. Waiting for a bigger mass than usual to go by, the run 
was made, and we all got safely over. It was literally a rock 
cascade, for there was very little water in the stream, and that 
quite shallow. Our pony jumped across without any difficulty, 
but our invaluable watch-dog, Jack, got panic-struck as he felt 
the ground moving under his feet, and crouched down. I was 
behind, and so able to catch him up and save him from a 
watery or even worse demise. 

This curious spot is known as "Feuer Ngai" or "Buddha's 
Ear Precipice." A small temple is niched into the rocks at one 
corner of the recess, where the pious people solicit protection, 



Digitized by 



Google 



166 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

every natural phenomenon being supposed to be in charge of a 
local deity. Thus we find shrines cut out of the rock at nearly 
every rapid in the many rivers of Szechuan, to which the passing 
boatmen seldom fail to pay their devotions : if lives are lost 
notwithstanding, as often happens, it is a case of divine 
retribution, in the infallible action of which no people believe 
more firmly than do the Chinese. 

The Tung river, says Baber, forms the true geopraphical and 
ethnographical boundary between China and Thibet, and so we 
practically found it to be at the present day, although later we 
discovered several purely Thibetan villages on the hither side 
of the river; still Tung River undoubtedly demarcates the 
geographical division, that original inorganic boundary which 
lies at the base of all other organic distinctions. Further on, 
while rounding a high cliff, we had a view, on the opposite 
shore, of a pair of parallel rivers issuing from the mountains on 
the right bank of the Tung, their channels separated at the 
mouths by a flat-topped, wall-sided terrace of angular rock 
fragments, cemented together by yellow loam, upon which 
stood a few scattered trees and farm buildings. Baber suggests 
that these dividing terraces of the many parallel rivers in these 
parts may be the medial moraines of ancient glaciers. These 
rivers issued, further back, from deep-cut ravines which 
converged from the recesses of the cloud-capped mountains 
beyond : they were discharging each a considerable volume of 
water through wide rock-strewn deltas, and probably had their 
sources in the snowfields of the lofty peaks which we skirted, or 
rather which the ravine pierced, by which two days later we 
ascended to Ta Chien Lu. Further back we had passed a spot 
where seven waterfalls issuing from the mountain side united 
their streams in one of the many swollen torrents which go to 
feed the capacious Tung. It is this abundance of water 
displayed in every possible form that adds so greatly to the 
beauty and interest of this romantic region. 

We now left the cliffs and went down by a steep path which 
led along the bank, being just edged in between the torrent and 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 167 

the rock-wall, covered with flowering shrubs, on our right. The 
river was here absolutely unnavigable, even for rafts, being not 
unlike, in appearance, to the rapids of the Niagara river below the 
falls, though of lesser volume. At length the valley opened out, 
farmsteads and gardens re-appeared, and we found ourselves in 
the suburbs of the important frontier town of Lu Ting Chiao, or 
11 Luting Bridge." We shortly after entered the busy main street 
and, just before dark, ensconced ourselves in a large, dirty, 
crowded inn. The town was crowded with porters and travellers 
from Ta Chien Lu and beyond, all waiting for more settled 
weather and the temporary repair of the almost impassable road 
we had just managed to traverse. We had to put up with a 
tumble-down shanty propped on piles and overhanging the 
torrent, whose roaring waters were visible from our window, 
through which we looked) on to the steep mountains on the 
Thibetan shore. 

It would be difficult to describe the tranquil beauty of the 
winding path along the banks of the Tung by which we entered 
Lu Ting Chiao. The flora to-day also was remarkably fine, 
mostly purple in colour, while on the Washan the prevailing 
shade was blue. We specially noticed a convolvulus with 
small dark-purple flowers, garlanding cassia trees and every- 
thing near it in prodigal profusion : also a large pink convolvulus 
and several varieties of snapdragon, generally yellow with red 
spots ; besides numerous In Keo Hua trees, covered with coral- 
red flowers. We also passed trees with berries of the size of 
hawthorn berries, one kind red with black spots, the other of a 
brilliant yellow, both edible and pleasing to the taste. Intensely 
blue forget-me-nots, quantities of golden rod, prince's feather 
(crimson and green, of a very large size, grown for seed), many 
kinds of white flowers, and a coral-pink vetch, further brightened 
the landscape. Among the trees were palms,* prickly pears, mul- 
berry, loquats, walnut and pomegranate. We also passed many 
handsome, spacious and elaborately carved sepulchres : we noticed 
more than one coal seam among the exposed nearly vertical 
strata of shales, into some of which burrows had been driven. 



Digitized by 



Google 



168 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Lu Ting Chiao owes its importance, as its name denotes, to its 
bridge, the sole one existing across the Tung River. Indeed, 
excepting insignificant bridges built high up near the sources of 
its chief affluents, it is the only bridge that crosses the waters 
of the many great rivers that go to form the great river, the 
Ta Kiang, that has its mouth at Shanghai, two thousand miles 
below. Up till the year when the present bridge was completed, 
the chief road from China to Thibet passed through Kokonor in 
the north, both banks of the Tung River being at that time in 
possession of the hostile Thibetans or Mantse tribes, as they 
were, and are still, designated by the Chinese. The Tung is 
passable by ferries only at favourable seasons when the current 
is moderated. One of these still functions near Fulin and 
another formerly existed at this spot. But in the reign of the 
great Emperor Kang Hi, whose individual energy seems, for the 
duration of his long reign, to have transfused itself into the 
veins of his usually apathetic Chinese subjects, the greatest 
exertions were made to conquer and pacify the borders, and so 
communications were opened and maintained, if only to facilitate 
military movements. The bridge is a suspension one, but, like 
so many things Chinese, of rudimentary construction* The 
roadway rests directly on the chains instead of being suspended 
from them. Hence the necessity of a low trajectory, to attain 
which the chains have to be stretched as tightly as possible ; and, 
instead of being hung from towers, as with us, they are simply 
stretched across from the level of the bank or roadway on either 
side, and are brought as near the horizontal as it is absolutely 
possible for a suspended chain to swing. The marvel is that the 
Chinese, or anybody else for that matter, ever succeeded in 
stretching the chains as taut as they are; for the bridge 
(according to Kang Hi's inscription) is 311 Chinese feet long, 
which agrees with my own measurements of 1 25 big paces. The 
bridge is made of nine parallel chains, and is nine Chinese feet 
wide ; the chains are formed of iron links each about ten inches 
long and nearly an inch in thickness, and are not stayed at all ; 
on them, or rather transversely across, are laid small planks of 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 169 

pine, not attached to the chains in any way but quite loose and 
shifting about with the traffic, leaving many gaps through which 
the sight of the roaring torrent below may well shake the nerves 
of the novice. The bridge sways considerably laterally, but 
otherwise,- to one who has his sea legs, offers no real difficulty. 
Men are stationed at either end who assist the timid (for a 
consideration), but we fortunately had no need to employ them. 
It is marvellous how horses are got to go on it for the first time. 
Our pony, who was an old stager, required considerable 
persuasion to get him on to it, and no wonder, for once he 
slipped his foot through between the boards. A drop into the 
river here would mean certain drowning. At either end is a 
handsome pavilion and an octroi station for the brick tea which 
is the principal article of merchandise that crosses, and in the 
pavilion on the Luting side is a big tablet of limestone with 
a long inscription describing the erection. The bridge was 
erected in the 39th to 41st year of Kang Hi (1701-3), and has 
now stood nearly two hundred year 3 without any repair, and no 
wonder the Chinese are proud of the marvel to which thirteen 
provinces, it is said, contributed each a chain, and which it took 
(so the inscription tells us) three years to build. The two side 
chains on either hand complete the thirteen.' Upon the Thibetan 
shore and under a detached pavilion corresponding to that in 
Luting is an arch with four large characters cut deep in relief, 
which translated are : — " Iron strength, Empire benevolence." 
Besides the likin collected on tea, this is the only bridge I have 
yet met with in the Empire where a toll (it is true almost 
infinitesimal) is collected upon all goods and passengers 
traversing it. 

A small dirty village, chiefly inns for the brick-tea porters, 
adjoins the west shore, emerging from which we passed along a 
narrow picturesque path cut out of the foot of the hills, which 
here again fall almost vertically into the water, and found our- 
selves at last upon the granite mountains of Thibet, ascending 
the right bank of the Tung and in the direction of the road for 
Ta Chien Lu. 



Digitized by 



Google 



170 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

We are within two days journey of Ta Chien Lu, and our 
road leads round the base of the high range, called Ta Shueh 
Shan, or " Great Snow Mountains/' behind which and between 
it and the great Thibetan plateau the town is situated. This 
lofty mountain mass is bounded on the east by the Tung River 
and on the north by the Tarchendo stream which, flowing 
down from the Thibetan plateau, enters the Tung at the hamlet 
of Wa Sze Kou, our destination for the night. The path, 
following up the banks of the two streams, skirts the base of the 
range which falls almost sheer into the water ; here in steep 
slopes, leaving scant space for occasional patches of cultivation, 
there in grand precipices whose crests had to be surmounted by 
the most breakneck paths we had yet had to face. The scenery 
was of the wildest description, grand and awe-inspiring, and the 
limestone chasms we had hitherto traversed seemed in the recol- 
lection tame and friendly by comparison. The vast masses of 
granite, broken up by towering precipices, their summits, from 
which descended numerous cascades, hidden in the clouds ; the 
steep slopes, guarded by wide stretches of prickly pear and 
other cacti, all seemed to dwarf human effort and cry halt to 
further progress, and one could not wonder at the long isolation 
of China, walled in by such an inaccessible frontier. At times 
no trace of human habitation was visible, and away from the 
water not a sound broke the overpowering stillness. We passed, 
but did not visit, here and there one of the wild-looking Thibetan 
hamlets perched upon unapproachable declivities, their gaunt, 
tower-built dwellings crowded close together, but with no signs 
of life about them, our spy-glass failing to discover even a dog 
much less a human being. They have a fortress-like appear- 
ance, are built of evenly laid rocks, uncemented, with narrow 
slits for windows, and are surmounted by roofed-in platforms ; 
anything wilder or more forbidding in the shape of a human 
home it is impossible to conceive, and they are in keeping with 
the gloomy Thibetan scenery and the still more repulsive 
religion. The few Chinese hamlets that we passed through by 
the road-side, with their din and noise, but teeming with life 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 171 

and activity, seemed charming by contrast, and as friendly as the 
others appeared hostile. Wherever a tiny valley or easier slope 
renders cultivation practicable, there the more industrious 
Chinese have pressed in and driven back the aborigines on to the 
barren mountains. The Thibetan population is dying out in the 
struggle like the Red Indian before the European ; the Chinese 
villages swarm with children, and the duty of having progeny 
which seems inborn to the Chinese race, and which is as 
strongly felt and obeyed as it was and is by the Jews under 
divine command, is steadily making them masters of all the 
outlying regions of their vast empire, notwithstanding their 
effeminate nature. This triumph of peaceful persistence strikes 
one forcibly when one meets a party of Thibetans on the road, 
striding along in all the pride of a magnificent physique, with 
their tall, manly, muscular forms, upright carriage, and haughty 
bearing, and compares them with the bent, overworked coolie 
and his cramp-footed spouse. A file of Thibetan men and 
women, migrating with their scanty store of household goods, 
passed us on the road to-day. They mostly speak some Chinese 
hereabouts, and we tried to address them, but they kept on 
without deigning to notice us. We tried to overtake them (and 
we were in good training by this time), but in vain; they 
quickly passed out of sight, men and women, without breaking 
their stride and, as we called after them, they did not even turn 
back to look at us. There seems to be an air of dignity about 
the poor Thibetan, the total want of which amongst the same 
class of Chinese makes them so worrying to the European 
traveller in their persistent inquisitiveness and utterly insatiable 
curiosity. The Thibetan is equally, if not more, superstitious, and 
nothing will induce him to be photographed, but he has not the 
same dislike and contempt for strangers that the Chinese so 
unreservedly exhibit and, but for the Lamas, who fear for the 
domination of their caste, is inclined to welcome travellers and 
to treat them with hospitality. He is more manly and self* 
respecting and, at first sight, one cannot imagine this martial 
race, accustomed to arms from their childhood — hardy hunters 



Digitized by 



Google 



172 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and inured to their terrible climate — being held in subjection by 
their unwarlike neighbours. It is a striking example of the 
triumph of mind over matter, and gives hope for the future of 
Europe which pessimists fear will eventually succumb under the 
weight of its own culture. 

For the last few days, in all the Chinese villages we passed 
through, the whole population — men and boys alike — were 
engaged in writing letters, and we noticed them especially 
addressing the envelopes with careful caligraphy. At first 
we could not make it out until we remembered it was the 
mid-seven moon, when deceased relatives have to be provided 
with funds to carry them over another year in the nether 
regions. The big envelopes contain voluminous supplies of 
paper cash, which are ceremoniously burnt, and so conveyed 
to their addressees. So busy were the people over this 
important work that they scarcely looked up to notice us, much 
less did the usually excited small boys attempt to run after us. 

The names of places hereabouts are all Thibetan, and the 
Chinese characters should only be taken as representing the 
sound. Thus Tachienlu, which successive travellers have 
interpreted as " Arrow- Forge," is simply the Chinese sound 
of the Thibetan Tarchendo — the confluence of the streams Tar 
and Chen ; so is " Cha-li," where we breakfasted this morning 
in a shanty open to a dirty street in the midst of a small flat 
perched 500 feet above the Tung, in an oasis of maize 
and millet. The night's heavy rain had apparently changed 
the previously limpid Tung into a swollen torrent of brown 
water, which rushed past at our feet in a series of terrific 
rapids — the fall from Wa Sze Kou to Lu TingChiao, a distance 
of twenty miles, being about 400 feet. At noon the ascent 
of a lofty cliff brought to view a recess in the mountains 
leading up to a narrow ravine; on the floor of the recess 
stood the hamlet of Ta Peng Pa (Embankment) 200 or 
300 feet above the river — a Chinese village, in a roomy 
farm-inn of which we tiffined, in full view of a glorious picture 
of hill and dale — another oasis of paddy-fields ; above these 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 173 

millet and maize, with an amphitheatre of barren mountains for 
the background. We noticed here a coracle — bullock-hide 
stretched over a frame of bamboo, reminding one of those still 
to be seen on the banks of the Wye, much as used by the 
ancient Britons in Caesar's time. An ascent of another lofty 
cliff, along a path on its extreme edge, which nothing but the 
fear of ridicule on the part of the pony-boy induced us to 
traverse without dismounting, at length brought us in view 
of a crack in the mountain wall on our left, up the ravine 
formed by which passes the road to Ta Chien Lu, for which 
and the torrent coming down it there is just room and nothing 
more. The view was wild and romantic in the extreme. On 
our right, at the foot of the precipice we were riding over, 
rolled the flooded Tung, here of the size and volume of the 
Rhine at Basle, its upward course traceable in the distance, 
winding like a thread through the valley we were now 
quitting, a wild pathless region inhabited by scattered 
remnants of the Menia tribe; facing us, and separated from 
us by a rocky spur, up which our onward path led, a gigantic 
vertical wall of granite, which formed the left bank of the 
affluent we were about to ascend, seemed to bar our way 
and almost threatened to crush us, if we ventured beneath 
it : on the further bank of the river, to the east, the mountains 
fell in steep uncultivated slopes sheer into the water, while 
similar heights bounded our view to the left, and shut out from 
view the snowy peaks of which they formed the buttress. 
Crossing the ridge, and quitting the Tung, a rugged precipice 
path which, but for the scoffs of the aforesaid pony-boy, I 
should never have dreamed of riding down, the marvellous 
little beast sliding and slipping on all four feet a great part 
of the way, deposited us safely, and at the early hour of five, 
in the Chinese village of Wa Sze Kou, " Tiled Fane Mouth," 
— i.e., " The village at the mouth (of the gorge) in which is a 
temple with a tiled roof. 9 ' Tiles seem rare luxuries in these 
parts, and hence the occurrence of such names as " Tiled Inn," 
"Tiled Temple," "Tiled House," frequent enough to make a 



Digitized by 



Google 



174 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

conscientious Freemason seeking shelter in this region quite 
easy in his mind. 

Wa Sze Kou is a prosperous-looking village, dependent for 
its prosperity on the passing tea-trade. It had quite recently, 
like so many of the hamlets hereabouts, with their roofs of 
pine planking or shingles, been entirely destroyed by fire ; the 
dozen or more comparatively spacious edifices, chiefly inns, 
had all just been rebuilt, and the place, in consequence, was 
abnormally clean. The site is limited, being a small flat 
squeezed in between the Tachendo river and the mountains, 
and evidently, from the number of boulders strewn about, 
liable to be overflowed. Yet many fine trees shaded the 
outlying houses and their gardens, the whole forming an 
almost idyllic contrast to the gloomy grandeur behind. Gold 
was formerly mined in the huge granite precipice across the 
water, but whether from want of profit or disturbance of the 
fungshui — I could not learn which — the mining had long since 
been discontinued. We made Wa Sze Kou 4200 feet above 
the sea; thus the Tung river from this, the highest point of its 
course touched by us, down to its mouth at Kiating Fu, a 
distance of about 200 miles, falls 4000 feet : above this point 
it is no longer known as the Tung, but as the Chin Chuan, or 
Golden Stream. The maximum to-day was only 65 degrees. 

September 6. — Wet day. We set out along the level path by 
the side of the river through the few fields and groves that 
surround the town, and after half a mile entered the narrow 
gorge through which the Tarchendo river has forced or found 
an exit This vertical-walled zigzag cleft in the granite range 
which rises on either side far above the line of perpetual snow, 
is, in appearance, not until the clefts in the calcareous rocks by 
which the Yangtze river makes its way through the mountain 
ranges dividing Hu Peh from Szechuan. How far either is 
due to the action of water is a question still disputed by pro- 
fessional geologists. I venture the plausible conjecture that 
they are mainly due to aqueous erosion, aided by " faults " in 
the line of the channel chosen. In any case the action of the 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 175 

Tar Chen Do stream must be very vigorous ; it is a mountain 
torrent on the colossal scale that characterises all natural 
phenomena in this the nucleus region of the Asiatic continent. 
From Ta Chien Lu to Wa Sze Kou, a distance of under twenty 
miles, the fall is 3500 feet, being little short of 200 feet to the 
mile ; yet the rise is so steady that in our morning's walk from 
Wa Sze Kou we, but for the evidence of the stream by our 
side, should scarcely have realised that we were going up hill 
at all The torrents carry a vast body of water and, at the 
time of our visit, we should judge, supplied fully half the 
volume of the Tung river. We tried to form an estimate of its 
volume by noting its dimensions at a spot where it was con- 
fined between two vertical rock-walls, thirty j r ards apart. We 
estimated its mean depth here at ten feet, and, assuming a 
velocity of eight miles per hour, or thirteen feet per second, we 
have here a volume of 4000 cubic feet per second, which is 
more than double the quantity discharged into the sea by the 
Thames, the biggest river in Britain. The work of erosion of 
which such a stream is capable must be a measurable quantity 
even in the course of a single year ; but, seeing how granite 
disintegrates by the action of water, and is not cut clean by it, 
as we see has been done in the limestone and sandstone lower 
down, we cannot but think these stupendous precipices of 
granite must be due originally to other forces ; nor is there 
anything like the regularity in the cliffs here that strikes one so 
forcibly in the gorges of the Ya and Yangtze rivers. Be this 
as it may, it was a grand walk following up this noble torrent 
of foaming blue water to its origin, and an unceasing source of 
interest to us every step of the way. The constant succession 
of rapids and falls, and the great volume of water compressed 
into such narrow compass, made of it an exceptionally fascin- 
ating companion, giving life to the gloomy and forbidding defile ; 
and, as we had but a short day's journey before us, we were 
able to enjoy and leisurely to realise the ineffaceable impression 
it made upon us. Its banks were lined with evergreen thickets, 
in one of which we put up a chamois. It is crossed, as we 



Digitized by 



Google 



176 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

saw, in two places only, by Thibetan rope bridges, and in these 
spots the stream was from 30 to 40 feet wide, and still a roaring 
rapid absolutely unfordable. The water is said to be mainly 
the produce of melting snow, but if this be so, its beautiful 
transparency is all the more remarkable. 

We stopped for breakfast at eight o'clock at a tumble-down 
Chinese hamlet called Jihti, a collection of cheap inns for the 
brick-tea porters, where nothing was obtainable but rough paoku 
(maize), pa-pa (damper), and very cheap samshoo or corn- 
brandy. Ten miles of a very rough path, chiefly over slippery 
rocks sticking up out of a slimy, orange-coloured clay, brought 
us to the end of the gorge proper, and at a spot where a side 
ravine enters the valley and affords a small triangle of available 
ground, we behold the village of Shengkan, surrounded by 
trees and small patches of maize and potato. Here we were 
told that the glacier at the head of the ravine was visible in 
clear weather, but to-day the ravine, as well as the valley we 
were in, was shrouded in a mysterious veil of mist, and, but 
that we had seen them with our own eyes from the summits of 
Mount Omi and the Washan, we should never have imagined 
that we were walking between peaks, on either hand of us, of a 
minimum height of 17,000 feet, the snow-line in latitude 30 N.; 
nor did the temperature of 66°, which we recorded at to-day's 
mid-day meal, suggest the fact that we were in the midst of a 
snowy range and ourselves already 6000 feet above sea level. 

The valley now opened out somewhat, giving room for the 
assiduous Chinese to introduce more cultivation, small patches of 
barley, maize, buckwheat, and a very inferior tobacco. In the 
widest spots the valley was, perhaps, 100 to 200 yards across, 
the ground behind rising in steep|slopes, hardly accessible even 
to the indefatigable Chinese woodcutters. Our approach to the 
city was now announced by the road passing through and 
under a ruinous but picturesque pavilion, a gilt inscription upon 
which informed us that it was erected by the Wu Shu Cha 
Shang, or five guilds trading ingtea, to the Ching Kuan Kung, 
the official in charge of the octroi, upon his giving up office some 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 177 

ten years before. Not far from this the second of the two 
Thibetan suspension bridges spans the river. We had read 
many descriptions of these bridges, and had never been able to 
gather from them how they were really worked, while the 
illustrations of them in Gill's and other books of travel in this 
region are so grotesquely incorrect, that we are tempted to try 
one more description. The b*nk here was not a foot above the 
water ; on the opposite shore it was quite steep and apparently 
only serviceable for the growth of jungle, which the Chinese cut 
down green, stow in a basket hung from the shoulders on their 
backs, dry, and take to the villages to sell for fuel. The bridge 
consists of a single rope stretched over two crossed stakes and 
tied down to a rock on the ground behind; this particular 
bridge started from a height of 5 feet from the ground and 
rose on the opposite side to a height of perhaps 30 ; hence in 
crossing from this side, a man (or woman, for we saw both 
make use of it) has to haul himself against gravity, while on the 
return journey, when he is laden with fuel or produce, he has 
gravity to assist him. On the rope is slung, by a half-cylinder 
of stout bamboo a foot long, which slides freely on the top of 
the rope, a small batten of wood which serves for a seat ; this 
batten is attached to the bamboo traveller by a line 2 feet long tied 
round the centre of the batten upon which the passenger sits with 
the line passing up between his knees, holding on by his hands to 
the bamboo traveller. With his whole weight suspended from 
this slip of bamboo he starts down the line, and, when the 
impetus is exhausted, hauls himself up hand over hand on the 
other side. It requires some nerve to risk one's self upon a 
11 chair " so frail as this is, with a raging torrent almost touching 
one's feet, a slip into which would be certain death. But women 
and novices can be assisted by a friend on the further bank, 
and with this object a guide line runs underneath the rope, 
attached to it and suspended from it by a series of light bamboo 
rings which also slide on the main rope. By means of this a 
traveller can be hauled along and is able to devote his whole 
attention to his seat and the bamboo slide, by which he holds on, 

M 



Digitized by 



Google 



i 



178 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and which moves along with him. Produce can also be hauled 
across without any passenger, and later on, at Ta Chien Lu, 
we saw unsavoury buckets of the ever-present Chinese fertiliser 
being hauled across to the narrow fields on the farther side of 
the " Tar." Of course, on the main Thibetan road, which is 
supposed to be practicable for Sedan chairs and beasts of burden, 
the rivers are crossed by suspension bridges proper or by 
ferries, but a traveller frequenting the byways, especially in 
the border country, will have to learn to use those bridges or 
abandon his journey. 

We had ascended a low intervening ridge by a few rough 
huge rock steps, and, on reaching the top, at about four o'clock, 
there lay the goal of our voyage, Ta Chien Lu, with its curved 
roofs and guilded pinnacles, surrounded by a mediaeval wall, 
most romantically situated at a point where the valley bifur- 
cates, walled in by gigantic and extraordinarily steep mountains, 
and roofed over by a dark cloud layer, which enveloped all the 
surrounding summits. A descent to a small boulder-strewn 
flat, in which were visible a few vegetable gardens, but no 
houses, concealed the city from view, but again, upon rounding 
a spur of the mountain on our left, which ran down into the 
water, the wild-looking city, with its crenelated battlements 
and old-world pavilions surmounting the gates, stood imme- 
diately before us. There was no suburb outside the gate, and 
the surroundings looked desolate and forbidding, but once 
inside the low gateway, we were soon beset by a crowd, and 
had a longer delay than was agreeable, while explaining our 
apparition and the object of our journey to the guard. At 
last we got off and seemed to ride on indefinitely until, after 
having been fairly puzzled to find our way, we arrived at an 
inn which turned out to be that invariably occupied by the 
rare European visitors to this remote place. We had traversed 
the whole main street of the city — narrow, dirty, and crowded — 
Chinese in short ; but the almost serried crowd that thronged 
the exiguous passage was totally un-Chinese, and at once 
fascinated us by its novelty and picturesque variety. Strange, 



Digitized by 



Google 



ROUND THE SNOWY RANGE 179 

wild figures, draped in loose mantles of felt and rough woollen 
cloth, with high felt boots gaudily decorated, some on foot, 
others on horseback, long-haired, handsome, brilliant brunette 
faces, formed the bulk of the passers-by. There were many 
Chinese among the shopkeepers in the shops, but the general 
effect was Thibetan. The puzzled, antipathetic stare of the 
stolid Chinaman had given place to the pleased, friendly look 
of the lively Mantse and his smiling wife. What a relief to be 
in a country where the women are natural and pleasant to look 
upon, and not where, as in China and India, the poor creatures 
are brought up to believe it is a sin to cast a glance at a 
stranger. Many of the Thibetans are mounted on splendid 
mules and ponies, gaily caparisoned. The streets were so 
crowded that we began to wonder whether we should ever 
get through, or when our journey would end, when, at length, 
we turned into a courtyard, in which mules and ponies were 
tethered; we mounted a rickety staircase leading up into a 
gallery similar to one of those surrounding the yards of the 
old London inns, and were allotted tolerably spacious quarters 
under the attic-like roof. A smart young lady, her hair, ears, 
neck and hands covered with jewellery, handed us a bowl 
of buttered tea each, and we realised that we had left China 
and were now really in Thibet. As to the buttered tea, 
though it had the colour and consistency of the most delicious 
chocolate, in flavour it was slightly deficient; it had a gout 
fade, without the slightest taste of tea; but its warmth was 
refreshing, and, in this cold country, the butter forms the most 
valuable constituent of the drink : what virtue there is in the 
tea, which is composed of dried twigs pounded up with a few 
big brown autumn leaves, it is difficult to imagine. By the 
Thibetan, however, it is the most prized commodity he imports, 
without which life would be unendurable. The agreeable novelty 
of a fine beefsteak for supper completed our satisfaction with 
our new surroundings. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XII 

TA CHIEN LU ; ITS LAMAS, DOGS, AND PONIES 

The Three Valleys of Ta Chlen Lu — European Pollution of Water — 
Thibetan Tusze, or Prince— Orientalism— Rupees— Brick-Tea Ware- 
house Inns — Yaks — Lamaserai— Prayer Banners— -Tsatse— Lamas set 
their Dogs at Photographer— Human Skulls as Ornaments— Prayer 
Slates — Carnios— - No Prayer Wheels to be sold— Om Mane Padm$ 
Hum— Thibetan Dignity— Batang— Changed Boundaries— Cold Wind 
off Glaciers— Roman Catholic Fathers— Variety of Tribes Beauty of 
Features — Furs — Excellent Market — Beautiful Pictures — Gloomy 
Defile — Treasure Mules in Charge of Mandarin — Gold Mining — 
Another Attempt to cross Tung — Sure-footed Pony— Prickly Pears 
— Drought — Deforestation. 

September 7. — Ta Chicn Lu, or Tarchendo, as the natives call 
the place, stands 8400 feet above the sea-level, in a deep 
depression, squeezed in between the lofty barrier range and 
the high rolling expanse of the Great Central Asian plateau. 
It occupies the bottom of a confined hollow, walled in by 
practicably inaccessible mountains, in which three valleys 
meet: two of these bring down the streams "Tar" and 
" Chen " from their sources in the snowy peaks behind, while 
the third carries down their joint contribution to the sea by 
way of the narrow defile leading past Waszekou to the Tung 
river. The larger stream flows right through the centre of the 
town, affording an unfailing supply of limpid water, in the 
shape of a foaming torrent whose roaring, but for our being so 
tired, would have kept us awake the night long. If this 
magnificent water-power is not made use of, as it would be in 
Europe, either for cleaning the town or for manufactures, we 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 18* 

have at least the consolation of seeing that its fair surface 
bears no scum, and that its bosom is not polluted by sewage asr* 
are so many streams in so-called civilised countries. Curious- 
that the pollution of water, which is a sin against religion* 
nearly throughout all Asia, should be a matter of sublime in*- 
difference in "enlightened " Europe and especially in England, 
where the barbarous misuse of water seems to go back to the 
Middle Ages, as one may see, for instance, at Canterbury, 
where the monks placed their solidly constructed latrines over 
the running stream. Of course, in China it is less the cleanly 
instincts of the people than the value of the excreta as a 
fertiliser to which the delightful purity of the streams and 
rivers everywhere is due. (Within three miles of Chung- 
king, the town refuse, carried out by coolies in buckets, is 
worth a shilling a picul,* and the mountains, with their scanty 
soil, could not be cultivated without it.) The stream is spanned 
in the town by two roofed-in plank bridges, across which 
a delicious cold breeze blows on the stillest summer day. 

The town and district are under the government of a native 
Tusze, or Prince, assisted by a Chinese resident : his palace, 
with its gilded roof, is one of the most conspicuous ornaments 
of the place. Adjoining it is a large lamaserai, a two-storied 
range of buildings surrounding a wide courtyard, a gallery 
running round, leading to rooms inhabited by the Lamas, the 
woodwork painted in gaudy colours, in a style more Indian 
than Chinese. China proper has an essentially distinctive 
mark about its art products, houses, furniture, and dress, 
which is not Oriental in the common acceptation of the term, 
and it is not till one gets to the border regions that Oriental- 
ism, as commonly understood, reappears. This strikes one 
forcibly in Peking, where the Mongolian element gives a 
colour and variety to the civilisation which makes a study of its 
street traffic so fascinating to the traveller; the long strings of 
stately camels, the ruddy-faced Mongols and yellow-coated 
Lamas all mark a change from the monotony of Chinese life. 
* A picul = i33ilbs. 



Digitized by 



Google 



182 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

So here in Ta Chien Lu, although we are far from the 
boundary of the eighteen provinces, as depicted on the maps, 
yet the atmosphere is truly Oriental, and the numerous races 
represented give an endless variety to the picture. Since the 
abandonment of the Kokonor route, owing to its greater 
natural difficulties, as also in consequence of the long disturb- 
ances on the north-west frontier, the Ta Chien Lu road is 
practically the sole way of communication between China 
proper and its vast dependencies in Thibet, all the traffic 
passing through this gully. Hence Ta Chien Lu is a cheerful, 
busy place, and as, at the time of our visit, the brick-tea trade 
was at its height, and as it is here that the precious product is 
transferred from human to animal porterage, for which it has 
to be repacked in skins, the town was overcrowded, and 
trafficking and bartering were going on between the Chinese 
and representatives of varied Thibetan tribes from far and 
near. The natives bring skins, wool, gold and musk ; taking 
in exchange cloth, calico, hardware, tobacco, and ''notions. 99 
Much of the trade is done by barter, but rupees circulate freely, 
and indeed form the sole currency of the region. All our 
payments were made in this coin, with a supply of which we 
had to furnish ourselves immediately on arrival, exchanging 
for them our pure Chungking sycee, weight for weight, at a 
Chinese banker's. We had first met with rupees at Tatien- 
chih, eight days east of Tachienlu, in the shape of ornaments 
worn by the women. A very useful, loosely woven, woollen 
cloth which the Chinese inhabitants of the cold mountainous 
country to the east made up into jackets, and were wearing, as 
we passed through, even in August, is eagerly bought by the 
Chinese ; sufficient for a kuatse, or jacket, being procurable here 
for a shilling. The tea is hardly an article of local trade ; it is 
a strict monopoly of the Lamas, who derive their chief income 
from it, storing it up in their lamaserais and retailing out this 
necessary of life to the poor Thibetans at exorbitant prices. 
We entered one of the spacious warehouse-inns, a range 01 
two-storied buildings with galleries surrounding a square 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 183 

courtyard, stored full of brick tea, which men and women were 
engaged repacking in bullock hides preparatory to loading it 
upon yaks, droves of which were penned in the inn yards 
awaiting their loads. This interesting animal, who rejoices in 
the cold, and can tread a path through the deepest snow, is a 
long woolly-haired ox with bushy tail, short legs and long 
thick body. They were all in fine condition after coming off 
their summer pasture on the mountains and, like their drovers, 
looked the picture of health and strength. 

Ta Chien Lu further boasts a number of Chinese Buddhist 
temples, unlike those of the Lamas, freely open to the sightseer, 
but mostly dirty and neglected, though, as usual, lavishly 
decorated. Outside the South Gate, and about a mile distant 
along the main Thibetan road, stands a magnificent lamaserai, 
surrounded by finer trees than any we had come across in a 
journey right through China. They were a kind of alder, 
called pehyang, and were really beautiful specimens, having 
been allowed to grow to their full natural size, unmolested by 
the Chinese fuel gatherers. A similar grove adorns the banks 
of the Chen river outside the North Gate. Our road to the 
lamaserai led us along the bank of the Tar, which we crossed 
by a stone bridge and then followed up its left shore by a 
rough stony path, until, passing through the grove of noble 
trees which line the bank, we reached the gate of the main 
buildings, first traversing a wide lawn of fine turf. The 
building is in the form of a quadrangle and is two-storied ; 
the lower story presents a blank wall to the road, but the 
second story is lit by a row of gaily painted windows, 
from the sills of which depended long narrow boxes full of 
brilliant orange blossoms of a kind of aster called in Chinese 
" Thibetan brightness." These are the homes of the monks, 
looking gay and cheerful as an undergraduate's rooms, in 
striking contrast to the gloom that seemed to hang over the 
interior. Outside the gate stood spacious sheds with tiled 
roofs, heaped up with innumerable miniature terra-cotta 
pagodas, covered with Buddhas, which, with the prayer 



Digitized by 



Google 



184 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

banners fluttering gaily in the breeze, are the accumulated 
offerings of worshippers, known in Tibetan ks Tsatse. 

Entering through a deep archway, we reached the inner 
courtyard. Immediately facing us was the lofty, richly decorated 
Buddhist temple, with its golden cupola ; on either side of it, and 
round the other three sides of the vast and highly decorated 
quadrangle, red, green and yellow with many prayer staves, 
were the dwellings of the monks, of whom several hundreds are 
said to inhabit this lamaserai, though many are temporarily 
absent on business or pleasure. We found few people about, 
and walked up the steps on to the lower verandah and looked 
into some of the rooms, each of which had a shrine and was 
comfortably furnished with bed, work-table, and chairs. In 
some, tea or food was being prepared, and the few young 
Lamas we saw looked cheerful and occupied, and took 
little notice of us. Meanwhile a few older Lamas had silently 
gathered in the courtyard, to which we returned with the view 
of asking them to open and show us the temple. They stood in 
statuesque attitude with their red felt toga-shaped gowns grace- 
fully draped over their bodies, leaving the right arm bare. Such 
a picture was worth photographing, and we quickly got the 
camera set up. Just as we had happily taken 'the picture, how- 
ever, the big Thibetan dogs, one or two of which had sniffed at 
us upon entering, but had not seriously troubled us, rushed upon 
my wife — and seized the alpenstock with which she was trying 
to ward them off in their teeth. We shouted to the Lamas and 
made signs to them to call their dogs off, but they assumed an 
impassive stare and neither spoke nor moved. This reinforce- 
ment of dogs had evidently been purposely let loose, and for the 
moment our position was alarming. But with the aid of our 
Chungking coolie, who stood by us manfully, we managed to 
keep them at bay with our sticks, and to effect a safe retreat, 
carrying off our guns (the camera, and its stand). We tried 
vainly to open up a conversation with a younger Lama who 
followed us out through the gate, but he either did not 
understand Chinese or else would not venture to have any 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 185 

intercourse with us. So here, as previously in the smaller 
lamaserai within the walls, we were disappointed in our 
endeavour to pierce the mysteries of a Thibetan shrine. Two 
human skulls forming the crowning ornament in the richest part 
of the temple roof gave us, however, an idea of the gloomy 
nature of Thibetan Buddhism, which is terribly repulsive in 
contrast to the mild and benignant Buddhism of China proper. 
Yet the temples of the poorer country are by far the richer 
and brighter of the two, which fact accords with the more 
devout superstition of the Thibetan people. On our way back 
we noticed two poor Thibetans clad in a single loose garment of 
sheepskin, each laden with a heavy slab of slate, a rough 
parallelogram, three feet by two, and half an inch thick. Upon 
each was engraved, in delicately cut and most ornamental 
Thibetan, what we were told was the phrase " Om mane padme 
hum," repeated over and over again. The whole surface of 
the slate was thus covered. These slabs were carefully 
deposited upon a huge heap of similar irregular fragments of 
slate and limestone, which formed a pile by the roadway twenty 
feet by six, and five feet high. We ventured to revenge our- 
selves on the Lamas by abstracting, unseen, two of the most 
portable slabs, and trust that the diminution of the pile of several 
thousand stones brought no harm on anybody. We spent the 
rest of our time in bargaining in the inn for Thibetan curios, but 
were not very successful ; extravagant prices were demanded for 
what most people call rubbish, and no price would tempt any of the 
Thibetans who crowded round us to part with the prayer wheel 
which nearly every one carried in his hand, nor with the amulet, 
a prayer written on paper, which was worn round the neck in 
an elaborately worked and bejewelled silver casket. But if 
bargaining with Thibetans was a trial to one's patience, the 
handsome faces of the men and the merry laughter of the women 
were a constant pleasure. In Ta Chien Lu are gathered at this 
season specimens from all the surrounding and from many 
distant tribes, and they vary a good deal in appearance. As 
far as we could learn, the strikingly handsome men (whom we 



Digitized by 



Google 



186 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

vainly begged to be photographed) belonged to the Menia tribe. 
They all wear long black hair, unplaited and uncombed, in 
curls over their faces, and in very large chignons behind 
tricked out with jewels ; while the women of Ta Chien Lu 
wore their hair plaited in two long plaits in coronets over 
the / head, a very becoming style. The Thibetans appear to 
be always praying, and the words " Om mane padme hum " 
are ceaselessly repeated. Long before dawn we were awakened 
by the devotions of the men residing on the ground floor below 
us, who prayed incessantly in a monotonous sing-song voice* 
There is a wonderful dignity about the poor Thibetans, in striking 
contrast to the ill-bred pushing manners of the lower classes ot 
Chinese which make them such a nuisance to the traveller. At 
bottom, the reason doubtless is the absurd contempt the Chinese 
entertain towards all foreigners, whom they look upon as a sort 
of wild animals whom they stare at and handle much as children 
do the wild beasts in a zoological gardens. The Thibetans regard 
us as equals, and if it were not for the oppression of the Lamas, 
and the fear that these latter entertain, and justly, that the influx 
of Europeans would destroy their hold over the people, I believe 
Thibet, as far as the people are concerned, would be as pleasant 
and easy a country to travel in as any in Europe. What is hard 
to explain is that such a fine athletic race, all trained to the use 
of arms from childhood, should be held in subjection by such a 
rabble as the Chinese usually appear, both soldiers and people. 
Another remarkable fact is that the Chinese have not disarmed 
these conquered races, as we in like cases have done with the 
tribes on the Indian border who have been brought under our 
sway. The Thibetans all carry arms, while to a Chinaman their 
use is abhorrent, and even the soldiers are most imperfectly 
provided with weapons, always ill kept, and are rarely seen 
with them. Truly it would seem to be a case of moral, or 
perhaps rather intellectual, supremacy. 

Thursday, September 8.— The land of Bod, or Bodyul, as the 
country is termed by the natives, is really under Chinese rule 
as far west as Batang only, a little over ioo miles as the 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 187 

crow flies, but eighteen days journey of high mountain passes. 
Batang is situated on the Upper Yangtze river, here called the 
Kin-sha (" Gold-sand ") and the country included in its valley, 
up to the crest of the hills beyond, lies under the authority of 
the Viceroy at Cheng Tu, and hence is marked on the recent 
maps as one with the province of Szechuan, with which, of 
course, apart from this fact, it has nothing whatever in common. 
The old Jesuit maps more correctly trace the western boundary 
of the province at Ta Chien Lu. But one advantage the 
traveller derives from the change is that a passport for the 
province of Szechuan enables him to demand the right to travel 
as far as Batang, a right not always acknowledged. Beyond 
Batang, however, begins the direct rule of the Lhassa monks, 
and, as we know, into the province of Lhassa no European 
traveller can at present penetrate ; and, in reality, the Chinese 
have no power there, although they keep a resident there, the 
Ambah. The Chinese maintain a few hundred soldiers along 
the highway from Ta Chien Lu to Batang as an escort for their 
officials and a protection to caravans, but the people are all 
ruled by their native chiefs, or Tusze. The Tusze or Wang ot 
Ta Chien Lu stands under the orders of the military governor 
of the district, who holds the rank of Futai. Except from the 
likin on the brick tea imported from Yachow, the Chinese 
Government derive little profit from their conquest otherwise 
than in surrounding themselves with a ring of practically 
subsidised buffer States, which has ever been a cherished 
object of Chinese policy. Indeed, the cost of occupying this 
barren country is defrayed by the wealthy province of 
Szechuan : in the Wa Sze Kou defile we had passed a string 
of forty laden mules conveying boxes of treasure destined for 
the pay of the Thibetan garrisons. The Tusze, or native 
princes, have, however, to maintain and provide, in case of 
need, a native militia, taking their orders from the Chinese 
governor ; and so, after the loose but not unpractical Chinese 
fashion, order is maintained and travel is comparatively safe, 
neither of which conditions can be said to prevail in the 



Digitized by 



Google 



188 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Thibetan, regions outside the immediate jurisdiction of the 
Chinese. There the different tribes are constantly raiding, and 
a travelling caravan is entirely dependent for its safety upon its 
numbers and the efficiency of its armament Thus, for us, 
beyond the trouble of the needful preparations, there was 
nothing, at least as far as the next pass west, beyond which no 
Chinese woman may proceed, to prevent our making an excur- 
sion of two days journey beyond the border city, and gaining a 
little experience of genuine Thibetan travel during the four 
days which we had allotted to Ta Chien Lu. But, most unfor- 
tunately, through want of sufficient clothing and a non-appre- 
ciation of the fact that we were entirely surrounded by snow 
and glaciers, I had a severe attack of neuralgia, and was laid 
up during nearly the whole of our stay, and so saw no more of 
the surrounding country than was visible from our confined 
valleys. The first day I had been strolling about trusting to 
the warm sun, and had failed to protect myself against the icy 
wind that set in at sunset and blew through the numerous 
crannies in the walls of our apartment. We vainly tried to 
stop them up, and the charcoal brazier in the room only made 
them worse by contrast. 

It was a satisfaction to hear afterwards from the good Fathers 
at the Catholic Mission that this was the fate of all the strangers 
whom they had known come there, and that all the travellers 
who had passed through from Thibet, though seemingly inured 
to the hardships of the plateau, had succumbed to what they 
termed the exceptionally unhealthy Conditions of the valley. 
An account of Ta Chien Lu without mentioning this mission, 
which is the most interesting object there to all Thibetan 
wanderers, would be like leaving Hamlet out of the play. The 
cordial welcome given to foreign travellers, whatever their 
nationality, has been told of in enthusiastic terms over and 
over again in the successive books of travel that have been 
written about this region. Nearly all, and we must include 
ourselves in this category, have run short of funds on arriving 
here, and, but for the timely help of the Fathers, might have 



Digitized by 



Google 




The Confined Valley of Ta Chien Lu. 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



TA CHIEN LU 189 

been in great straits. The mission has two establishments at 
Ta Chien Lu, one outside the south and one outside the north 
gate of the city ; the titular Bishop of Thibet also resides here, 
being unable to take up his post as long as no arrangement is 
come to with the truculent Lamas,* the reduction of whose 
despotic and misused power would be a work of true philan- 
thropy. But the great delight of meeting the Fathers here is 
in the opportunity of once more being able to hold converse 
with well-informed men of education, after having for days 
talked to people from whom one can only extract a modicum of 
information by the most pertinacious system of cross-examina- 
tion — men, too, who think you have some sinister object in 
invading their country and wanting to find out about things 
which should not concern you. The Fathers seem to be 
stationed here on the frontier, patiently awaiting coming 
developments, doing what they can in Ta Chien Lu and its 
neighbourhood meanwhile. They expect that either Russia or 
England will force the opening of the country, and were much 
disappointed that the late Sikkim encounter led to no result. 
At that time an advance to Lhassa would in all probability 
have been a mere military promenade, as the Thibetan people 
are friendly disposed towards Europeans and the Lamas were 
thoroughly cowed. It remains to be seen what will be the 
result of the present negotiations at Darjeeling, in which it is 
to be feared the wily Chinese will, as usual, outwit us. It 
is sincerely to be hoped that the country will be opened, and 
that through foreign intercourse this fine people may be gradu- 
ally relieved from the grinding oppression of the Lamas; 
much material gain from so poor a country can hardly be 
anticipated. 

September 9. — Spent most of the day bargaining for worth- 
less "curios/ 9 which, however, gave us an opportunity of 
observing the numerous types of Thibetans (all classed, 

* This has since been effected by the perseverance and determination of 
M. Haas, the very capable and energetic French Consul, and the Roman 
Catholic Fathers are once more free to return to their old quarters in the 
Interior of Thibet. 



Digitized by 



Google 



190 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

including ourselves, by the Chinese under the simple name 01 
Mantse, or savages), and thus, notwithstanding we were dis- 
appointed in not heing able to penetrate further west, we 
enjoyed at Ta Chien Lu the advantage of seeing natives from a 
wide range of the surrounding country, to visit whose homes 
would have necessitated a prolonged expedition. We could 
not learn much, owing to our inability to converse with them, 
and as our Chinese interpreters would take no interest in our 
questions we did not get far. We were again struck by the beauty 
of the features of some of the younger men, and by the erect and 
manly carriage of all, while the few women we saw were most 
attractive, notwithstanding their dirt. We bought sheepskin 
jackets, made up by local Chinese tailors, without lining, for 
six rupees apiece — (Lama heads, as these ate locally called, the 
crown on her Majesty's head being taken for a priest's coiffure), 
and all our coolies delightedly supplied themselves with these 
cheap winter clothes, borrowing the money from us. Splendid 
hoods of scarlet cloth, bound with handsome sable skins, com- 
pleted our outfit. We took a walk up the steep, grassy slope 
of the mountain outside the north gate, glad to warm ourselves 
in the bright sunshine, and caught a view of the glaciers and 
snowfields opposite, but the mountain tops were everlastingly 
enveloped in impenetrable mist. Perhaps if we had only 
bought our furs immediately on arrival, and so had avoided 
getting ill, we might have attempted to penetrate them, but 
although on the day of our arrival we noticed the people were 
mostly wearing sheepskin jackets, the sun was so warm that we 
could not realise the need of them. Ta Chien Lu has a most 
excellent market, containing all the European needs, the pro- 
duce of the pastoral Thibetan, as well as the vegetables and the 
dainties of the agricultural Chinese, and our supper this evening 
of spiced mutton, potatoes, cabbage, and native cheese left 
nothing to be desired. 

During our four days stay the temperature ranged from 50 
to 76 in the shade. 

September 10. — The time has now come when, sadly and 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 191 

reluctantly, we have to turn round from this most interesting 
and delightful westward journey, and retrace our steps home- 
wards. An early breakfast of parched barley (tsamba) mush, 
and delicious fresh milk and raspberries prepared us for the 
short twenty-mile ride down stream to Wa Sze Kou. After 
trying several ponies offered for hire on the previous day, we 
eventually picked out the smallest of the lot, a little four-year- 
old stallion, a bay, four black legs, black mane and tail down to 
the ground in fine condition, standing eleven and a quarter 
hands, altogether one of the most perfect specimens of horse- 
flesh in miniature one could wish to see. He was very skittish 
and lively, but good-tempered, and apparently (which we after- 
wards proved him to be) quite free from vice. He tried to run 
away with A., who first mounted him outside the east gate, by 
which we had entered the city, but the ascent of a steep, 
rocky ridge, such as one would think it impossible for a horse 
to walk up, much less gallop, soon brought him to his senses. 
We hired him for twelve rupees for the eight stages to Ya Chou 
Fu, at which point we proposed to descend the Ya river to 
Kiating by a raft. We turned round outside the gate for a last 
farewell to the friendly town, a beautiful picture with its back- 
ground of mountains just being illuminated by the rising sun, 
and the thought of having to leave it, probably for ever, made 
us, for the first time this journey, really melancholy. The 
march down the gloomy, winding defile, with its 3500 feet 
descent, up and down rock heaps, fording swollen streams from 
the glaciers on our right, across fearsome bridges composed of 
two or three rough fir trees lashed together, the pony being 
driven into the torrent to scramble his own way over among 
the boulders, with the ever-roaring accompaniment of the full 
Tar Chen Do river on our left, brought us without further 
incident to our former clean hostelry at Wa Sze Kou in time 
for a late dinner at 4 p.m. We were more fortunate in the 
weather than at the time of our ascent, for on passing the side 
glen which enters the Wa Sze Kou defile at Shen Kang at 
ten o'clock, we got a narrow glimpse of the towering snow 



Digitized by 



Google 



i 9 2 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

peaks which form the barrier wall between Ta Chien Lu and 
China. We met another string of twenty-four mules laden 
with treasure, the weiyuan, or official deputy in charge, riding in 
a four-bearer Sedan chair, with eight coolies in front attached to 
ropes with which to haul the chair up the many perpendicular 
bits of the rock-strewn trail, the " great man," of course, never 
dismounting however difficult the obstruction. How do these 
effeminate people manage to rule manly races like the Thibetans 
and the warlike Mongols ? The abominable condition of the 
roads in China, or rather their almost absolute non-existence, is 
doubtless largely due to the fact that any track is good enough 
which a mandarin can get over in a Sedan chair, and the patient, 
muscular coolies will get a Sedan chair over almost any track 
that a goat can traverse, while, of course, compared with the 
tremendous burdens they carry at other times, a Sedan chair is 
. to them a plaything. The military code forbids military officials 
to make use of chairs, but on my travels I never remember to 
have met a military officer riding in a Sedan. And these are 
the people whom Lord Wolseley designates as the coming 
world-conquerors. Perhaps the raw material is there in the 
masses, should they ever be organised by Russia, or by any 
European power, but never under their native leaders ! 

Wa Sze Kou felt delightfully warm after Ta Chien Lu, and 
quite cured us of our chills, although it is still nearly 5000 
feet above sea-level; and we sat on a bench outside the inn 
and enjoyed the effect of a beautiful sunset upon the sur- 
rounding mountains. Facing us, and separated only by the 
wide, rushing torrent, stood the huge granite cliff that forms 
the right-hand portal of the defile. In its face are the traces 
of old tunnels made for gold-mining, now forbidden ; and what 
a glorious water-power is here running to waste, which, in the 
ever-receding future, when China is to be " opened up/' will 
doubtless one day make the wild valley hideous with the noise 
of quartz-crushing 1 Now the valley is given over to the 
charm of nature in all its original beauty, and the dilettante 
traveller cannot but be grateful to the Chinese for the stern 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIBN LU 193 

opposition of the Government to the industrial development of 
their country ; but to the utilitarian half of one's brain it is a 
sad sight, go where one will throughout the Empire, to see such 
unique natural advantages as China enjoys absolutely wasted, 
while her surplus population vainly seeks employment and 
European capital an outlet for its savings. 

September 11. — The country north of Wa Sze Kou, on both 
banks of the Tung river, a mountainous region traversed by no 
known roads, is still purely Thibetan. As, coming up, we had 
noticed in the distance a Thibetan village on the opposite left, 
or China, bank, we determined to make an effort to get across 
the river to photograph it To do this we had to cross the 
rapid Tarchendo by a frail Chinese plank bridge resting on 
piles, stayed by ropes, and then by a really break-neck path 
along the face of the cliff, and round the angle by which it 
divides the two valleys. We then walked 5 K up along the 
right bank of the Tung, over a difficult, little used path, 
through rocks and luxuriant jungle with no signs of cultiva- 
tion, to a point opposite the village, where the ferry-boat lay. 
The ferry is necessarily above Wa Sze Kou, as below this 
point the afflux of the Tarchendo, coupled with the steep fall 
in the bed, renders the Tung unferryable in summer; and 
hence the almost superhuman efforts of the Chinese to erect 
the Luting bridge But above Wa Sze Kou the reach of the 
Tung at this spot is comparatively tranquil. This made it 
the more annoying that, do what we would, we could not 
induce the lazy, and probably fearful, Thibetans on the 
opposite shore to come across to us. Our coolies shouted 
and waved strings of copper cash, but the few phlegmatic 
people moving seemed entirely to ignore us. When we 
arrived the village had apparently not yet woke up, and no 
one was to be seen. Presently a man appeared driving a flock 
of sheep before him, and then slowly disappeared up the 
valley ; anon another individual strolled leisurely past, leading 
a flock of goats up the mountain side. Now a man clad in a 
loose sheepskin came down to the water side, and we thought 

N 



Digitized by 



Google 



194 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

that now at last our time had come ; but no ! he seemed entirely 
absorbed in chasing the vermin in his woolly garment, worn 
wool inside, and disdained to take any notice of us. Then a gentle- 
man emerged on to the flat roof of his three-storied tower-like 
dwelling and smoked his pipe, his calm content contrasting most 
aggravatingly with our impatience. A boy came down to the 
boat and lay on his back in the sun and sang, but other 
inhabitants, if there were any, did not deign to appear. Mean- 
while time was getting on, and we had 75 li to go to Luting 
Chiao before dark. We waited on four solid hours hoping that 
something would occur to set the ferry boat in motion, but 
nothing did occur, and so for the second time (the time before at 
Kin Kou Ho) we had to give up our attempt to cross the Tung 
river and explore new country on its other bank. 

It was past noon when we returned at last to Wa Sze Kou 
and set out for Luting. Leaving the village, we ascended the 
cliff to the right, 300 feet above the river by our aneroid, the 
path generally keeping at about this level above the river, 
except where it descends to cross one of the deep gullies coming 
from the wall of granite mountains to the west. Only long 
familiarity with such paths, and confidence in the sure-footedness 
of the little pony, with his muscles of iron, made it possible to ride 
with a yawning precipice falling away at one's feet, especially 
trying at the many comers to be turned round. We refreshed 
at Cha Li, in a tea-restaurant, picturesquely built upon a rocky 
projection, overlooking the path and facing the grand amphi- 
theatre of mountains on the opposite shore, but with the whole 
view purposely shut out by a painted wooden screen, joined to 
the house by a wooden covering roofing in the roadway. The 
slopes were almost entirely covered with prickly pear, now 
in luscious condition, to secure which the passing porters 
would stop and endanger their lives descending the precipices 
to gather them. Here paddy-cultivation recommenced, and the 
Chinaman feels himself once more at home, for land that does 
not produce rice is looked upon as almost valueless in Central and 
Southern China, and inquiring into the extent and value of large 



Digitized by 



Google 



TA CHIEN LU 195 

estates round Chung King, one is always answered : — " They 
reap so many piculs of paddy." This is said of estates not one- 
tenth of whose area can ever be terraced into paddy fields. A 
bad drought had prevailed here this summer, there having been 
no rain in the month of June, the season here for planting out 
the paddy, and the people were dependent on their p'aoku 
(" wrapped grain "), *>., maize, for their sustenance. But the 
country has been suffering from drought for some years past ; 
the people told us they had now had five dry summers in 
succession, and this accounted for the number of vacant villages 
we passed along the Tung river valley and the number of 
deserted farmhouses, the woodwork of which had been removed 
and sold for food. The absolute destruction of the forests and 
the uprooting of the jungle that prevails wherever the Chinese 
get a footing would seem to account for this, or the comparatively 
modern desiccation of Central Asia, which may be due to cosmical 
causes yet undiscovered. The celebrated naturalist, Pfcre Amand 
David, who long collected in these regions, and especially in the 
Moupin district, which lies in the angle formed by the Thibetan 
ranges running north and south, and the Kiulung range running 
east and west — the north-west corner of Szechuan proper — 
cannot believe that the reckless destruction and uprooting of 
forests that characterises the onward march of Chinese civilisa- 
tion is due to the need of firewood, as he attributes it rather to 
the impulse to destroy all cover for wild beasts. In any case it 
is a much more serious matter than the ignorant rulers of the 
country can be led to appreciate, and makes one wonder whether 
the time is coming when China will, like modern Persia and the 
whilom fertile lands of Central Asia, be some day reduced to 
their present impoverished condition. We passed many houses 
with their lower floors entirely blocked and filled up with dried 
mud and with rock fragments washed down in the August 
freshets. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XIII 

BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 

Theatrical Scene at Yamen— Coolies Malingering— Sleeping in 
Brick-Tea Porters' Refuge— Phoenix Flat— Fei Yaeh Pass— Granite 
Monolith— Through Fields of Buckwheat— Ching Chi Wind— Pass of 
West Gap Barrier— Sitting round Red-hot Coal Balls— Zigzaging 
up Great Elephant Pass— Discarded Sandals— Illicit Stills— Water 
Parting between Tung and Ya— Where Richthofen was turned back 
—Tavern of Yellow Earth— Who repairs the Roads ? 

It was dark before we reached our destination, and we had to 
procure lanterns to enable us to proceed, which we did in a 
most gingerly manner. At length we passed on to the bridge, 
which was swaying badly — the result, we were told, of the 
day's breeze and of the day's traffic over it. Hence timid 
travellers always arrange to cross it in the morning when it has 
had time to settle itself during the night. Here our coolies 
had a fracas with the likin runners, the rights of which we 
never clearly understood, but it resulted in two of our men 
being thrown down on the swaying bridge and some of the furs 
we had bought in Ta Chien Lu being purloined. When we at 
last reached the dirty inn at which we had lodged on our way up, 
our men declared it was a most unprovoked attack, and our boy, 
or courrier, who was responsible for everything, insisted that I 
should make a formal complaint to the magistrate of the place, 
as two of our coolies were too much hurt to be able to proceed, 
and that unless I got the offenders punished, the people would 
be too frightened for him to be able to find two substitutes in 
the morning. Being an old and tried servant, though I was 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 197 

very, very tired, and particularly loath to make any unnecessary 
trouble, I consented to let him take my card with my passport 
to the magistrate, and ask if he would receive me that night. 
He consented, and, after supper, I walked round, accompanied 
by two of our Chungking coolies. The old gentleman, who 
seemed lively and cordial, and hardly troubled by the growth on 
his neck of an enormous wen, half the size of his head, received 
me on the dais in the Audience Hall of hisyatntn, fairly well 
lit up by numerous red candles. Separating the hall from 
the court-yard hung a pair of red-cloth curtains, which kept out 
the chilly night air. After the usual complimentary preliminaries, 
I described the incident and requested that the offenders should 
be punished and my stolen furs restored or paid for. He called 
in my two men, who fell on their knees before the "great man," 
and told their story with great freedom and clearness, and 
particularly insisted that the aggressors should be made to give 
up the furs, which they declared to be still in their possession, 
and further, that two of their number being disabled from 
proceeding further, substitutes should be found for them in the 
morning to carry their loads to Ya Chow. Naturally they were 
far more voluble than I could be, but when they had done, I 
represented, in my best Chinese, that I only wanted justice. 
This was weak on my part, as the result showed, and as all 
experience of intercourse with Chinese officials teaches, for 
I neither got back my furs, nor did I get my substitutes 
for the wounded men. I got dramatic retribution instead, and 
saw, when it was too late, that I had been foolish in not acting 
the part of a man determined to have his losses at the hands 
of servants of the officials (likin runners) made good, and his 
rights under his passports thoroughly respected. Meanwhile, 
the kindly old gentleman begged me to drink my tea, and, turning 
aside to one of the crowd of attendants, spoke a few words to 
him, which I did not catch, but the man addressed immediately 
quitted the Hall of Audience. Then, turning to me, the courtly 
old man began expatiating upon the fact of all " within the four 
; " being brothers, and commiserating with me on the loss 



Digitized by 



Google 



198 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

of my furs, and wound up by saying, " I have already arranged 
everything " (" Wo pan liao "), in a loud tone. Instantly the red 
curtains were drawn aside, disclosing, as in a scene at a play, 
and lit up by two torch-bearers at the wings, two unfortunate 
wretches kneeling in cangues, their bodies entirely concealed, 
their huge wooden collars resting on the floor before us. 
Cetait tpatant! Here were the culprits already arrested and 
punished in an exemplary manner. What greater satisfaction 
could the most exacting plaintiff demand ? and the tnise-en-scinc 
was perfect, according with the dramatic retribution given. A 
dead silence filled the hall, the ring of attendants, with their 
faces lit up by the flaming torches, looking like the chorus in 
the play on the point of bursting forth in a wail of lament. The 
two wretched frowsy beggar heads projecting from the wide 
surface of the cangues, deathly pale and absolutely motionless, 
looked as though they had long since been severed from their 
owners' bodies. I was dumbfounded, and not until the torches 
in the wings had burnt dim and the curtains had been slowly 
let fall, and a rustle amongst the attendants declared the scene 
to be at an end, had I the courage to insinuate that these were 
not the men at all — at all. "The men who made the dis- 
turbance with my coolies were decently-attired likin runners," I 
put in, "and not these two wretched unshorn malefactors." 
"No doubt your excellency mistook their appearance in the 
dark," replied the old gentleman in his suavest tones. " The 
affair had already been brought to my knowledge before your 
excellency's card was brought to me ; I immediately investigated 
the affair, had the offenders arrested and punished summarily, 
as you have yourself seen. Our duty and pleasure is to protect 
and assist guests from afar (yuan ko) and there was no need, 
as you have seen, even to make a complaint, where an insult to 
foreign travellers has been given." " But where are the furs ?" 
I asked. " Oh, those fell into the river in the dark. We have 
a guard on the bridge, and no one would dare have stolen them." 
" But it is the guard that stole them." " Impossible ! The men 
you saw cangued are the men who tried to attack you, probably 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 199 

with a view to theft, but they were stopped by my guard." 
" But how about my two wounded coolies ? Those wretches in 
the cangue could not have struck them and knocked them down; 
they could not have stolen the furs which were on the top of 
the peitzes on their backs without attacking them. Besides 
there were a dozen men at the entrance of the bridge who 
surrounded them ; I thought myself it was to demand likin on 
the furs, which I was perfectly willing to pay, but I am informed 
that the only likin payable is on brick tea." It was all no use ; 
the barbarian is ever helpless in an argument with the wily 
Chinaman ; his only chance is to insist on what he wants, and, 
while so doing, his best plan is to pretend not to understand 
the arguments against him. Hence, having begun to argue, 
I was necessarily beaten in advance. I did all I could, being 
strenuously backed up by my two coolies, who displayed, I 
thought, astonishing audacity in flatly contradicting the man- 
darin and declaring over and over again that these were not 
the men. It was all no use ; the mandarin made a good point 
for his case in insisting that, as the affair took place when it 
was pitch dark, neither I nor my men could possibly distinguish 
who the assailants were, and that, but for the promptness of his 
runners in at once arresting the culprits, it would have been 
impossible to pan the business at all. I might possibly have 
gained my point — the restoration of the furs or their equivalent 
— by threatening to stay where I was until my demands were 
conceded, but unfortunately I had already given way, so there 
was nothing to be done but to take my leave, which I did, the 
mandarin politely wishing me a prosperous journey and escorting 
me to the outer gate with a profusion of bows. When I got 
back to the inn, our " boy " and our men were furious at the 
way I had let myself be taken in; our "boy" tried to insist 
upon my going in the morning to the bridge, when he would 
point out the real culprits, and that I should then call again 
upon the official, and not leave the place until justice had been 
done. I really began to feel ashamed of my diplomatic powers, 
but I did not think the matter sufficiently serious to make any 



Digitized by 



Google 



20o MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

more fuss about, although our "boy" represented that if I 
allowed myself to be thus put upon, he would not be responsible 
for what might happen in the further course of the journey. I 
may mention that this invaluable personage, of whom I stand 
in no little awe when travelling, was formerly the servant of 
Consul Gardner during his travels, and consequently is fully 
alive to the rights of British subjects and the wiles of the 
mandarins, of which, in common with all the lower classes of 
Chinese, he has a most profound mistrust and dread. It was 
thus very late before we turned in for the night, after a long 
and tiring day ; but at least I had had an unlooked for dramatic 
performance thrown in, and a most dramatic scene it was, and 
one which will always remain pictured on my brain. 

September 12. — On attempting to start our train this morning, 
found a general strike amongst our men, who refused to start 
without substitutes being found for their two wounded com- 
panions of the night before. These lay rolled up in their quilts 
groaning. Our boy could find no unengaged porters in the 
place, and we were in a quandary which needed a little more 
than the usually sufficient suaviter in tnodo to get out of. So, 
suddenly stripping the warm wadded quilt off one of the 
malingerers, I asked him to show me his wounds. His naked 
body had not a mark on it ; so, telling him I would give him 
something to recover from if he persisted in remaining, and 
emphasising my words with a sharp tap from my cane, I forced 
him up and his fellow likewise. I distributed the loads, and 
without further demur we got under way. 

We set off by the path following the left bank of the Tung, 
by which we had ascended, and coasted round the " Buddha's 
Ear" Precipice without further adventure. The fall of stones, 
which eight days ago was tumbling over with the regularity 
and persistence of a cascade of water, had now entirely ceased, 
the weather had cleared up, and the river of ochre mud which 
accompanied them was quite dried up. But the path round the 
recess was as narrow, and the friable shale as yielding as 
ever, and it is a real marvel how the heavy-laden brick-tea 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 201 

porters succeed in traversing it, or that the Chinese have not 
attempted to lay out a better road where the traffic is so great. 

Our goal for the night was " Phoenix Flat/' but our fracas 
with the coolies in the morning had so delayed our start that 
darkness caught us still stumbling among the boulders and 
numerous streamlets that form the valley floor through which 
the uncertain trail winds. Shortly afterwards we reached a 
small but crowded village built back against the steep hill-side, 
in which we found a huge brick-tea porters' shelter, with a 
retired corner in which to spread our beds. The so-called inn 
was kept by a graduate, an affable old gentleman with white 
moustache and goatee, who, in his day, had visited the great 
metropolis of Shanghai, and so held us Western Mantse in 
comparative respect. 

September 13. — Setting out in the cool morning air, we left 
the level of the stream where we had slept, and climbed up the 
extraordinarily steep, rocky path, to the picturesque, flat-topped 
rock, 500 feet above, upon which stands the well-built town of 
Hua Ling Ping ("Phoenix Flat")* Ascending to it, the situation 
is far more striking than in coming down upon it from above, 
as one faces the splendid amphitheatre of wooded peaks, dotted 
with temples and waterfalls, which form the background ; the 
heights culminating in the twin mountains between which goes 
the pass of Fei Yueh, or " Fly beyond," as the name correctly 
written indicates, and which leads to the valley of Itu. We 
mounted the interminable zigzag in a Scotch mist which soaked 
us to the skin, found the same old man crouching over a wood 
fire in the ruinous guard-house, accepted a cup of hot water, 
our eyes nearly blinded by the smoke as we sat on a bench by 
the fire smouldering on the earth floor, and then descended on 
the other side by a path so bad that even the led pony came 
near breaking his neck ; but we were in some way compensated 
by the magnificent display of wild flowers and evergreen 
shrubs. We followed down the Itu river, which has its source 
in this wild glen, until the path led us again through the 
cultivated, country and past the small hamlets along the top 



Digitized by 



Google 



202 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

and on the left bank of the limestone gorge through which the 
stream has cut its way before the valley widens out and gives 
room for the rich basin in which stands Itu. The walls of the 
gorge, red in places and overhung with dark-green shrubs, 
were very beautiful, but were entirely dwarfed by the panorama 
of cloud-capped mountains on either side. West of the town 
We noticed a granite monolith, about 20 feet high, in shape a 
pillar surmounted, or rather surrounded, by a rectangular 
cradle, like the flag-staffs in front of Chinese yatn£ns> which 
Baber believed to be survivals of Phallic worship. Most 
monuments of this description are ancient, but here was one 
brand new ; on its face were four deeply-cut large characters, 
thickly inlaid with gold, Wen, Wu f Sze, Shu — literally trans- 
lated, " Civil, Military, Four, Erect." A more lengthy inscrip- 
tion on the pedestal showed it to have been set up only eight 
years since — a votive offering for Itu's success at the triennial 
examinations. The completion of 80 It brought us at dark 
to the gorgeous inn where we had slept on our way up. 

September 14. — We were now to diverge from the devious 
and romantic by-way by which we had come from Mount Omi, 
coasting the southern face of its mass, along the valley of the 
Tung — and to turn aside to the north, to cross the Elephant 
Pass to Yachow, thence to descend the Ya river, which skirts 
the massif oi Omi on its north side, — and so complete the circuit 
at Kiating. We were to make a short cut across country, and 
join the great high road at Yang Chuan Men, 90 li distant, 
with two passes intervening, so a very early start was necessary. 
Upon leaving Itu we continued down the valley a distance of 
15 li through fields of buckwheat, now in flower, to the hamlet 
of Shan Chi Kou, where we breakfasted at 7.30, having come 
down to 4700 feet. Here we turned off to the north, up a 
steep path, crossing red hills in which the water-courses had 
scored green gashes, exposing the subsoil, and having curiously 
brought to light a brilliant complementary colour. At 10.30 we 
had ascended 1700 feet to Liang Fung Kang — Gold Wind 
Ridge — the pass leading to the wide and wild valley in the 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 203 

centre of which stands the walled district city of Ching Chi 
(Ch'ing Ch'i Hsien : "City of Limpid Streams"). We went 
down by a side valley, with on our right purple slopes broken 
up by red and white precipices with more gently sloping ledges 
on our left, until at 2.30 we reached Shih Men Kang — Rock 
Gate Ridge, 4900 feet. We now left the city on our right, 
4 miles distant, and a long way below. We could just make 
out its outline with the glass, its crenelated walls bounded on 
the south by a deep ravine in the barren clayey soil, through 
which flowed a small clear stream. The city is a poor, thinly 
inhabited place, in keeping with the barren country surrounding 
it The interior, viewed from a distance, seemed embowered in 
trees, and, as is the case with so many Chinese towns, made a 
delightful impression, which a nearer acquaintance would pro- 
bably have dispelled. Although I speak of valley, yet the 
mountainous country in which it lies is only such in comparison 
with the high ranges which form the boundary of the " district/ 9 
the main ranges, as everywhere hereabouts, running north and 
south. The native proverb says : " Ching Chi wind, Yachow 
rain," and so we found it; a gale of wind blew from the north, 
and we found it almost impossible to set up the camera. This 
was an almost unprecedented experience ever since the day of 
our departure from Chungking. Continuing our way by many 
ups and downs, through hillocks of clay covered with coarse 
grass and bushes, we ascended to the pass of Hsi Ya Kou 
("West Gap Barrier "), which traverses a range of five wooded 
pyramidal precipitous peaks, and found ourselves once more at 
6600 feet above the sea, whence, looking back, we enjoyed one 
of the wildest, and at the same time most extended, views we 
had encountered since leaving Omi The higher summits were 
enveloped in cloud, as usual, but all below the wide valley lay 
clear and distant as in a map. It was a wild gloomy prospect, 
with not a living creature in view to disturb the solitude. We 
now descended 1300 feet to Ya She Po, which we reached at 
dusk, and were still 15 It distant from our destination for the 
night, where we had given our men rendezvous, as these had 



Digitized by 



Google 



204 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

gone on ahead while we were photographing and loitering. 
" Gap Market Slope " was a small crowded village whose 
inhabitants appeared to be all occupied in threshing barley and 
making up coal bricks, or rather dumplings, from anthracite 
dust extracted from the neighbouring range. Another climb of 
1500 feet up a rocky path, most difficult to mount in the dark, 
brought us at length to the main road which runs through 
Yung Chuan M£n, ascending which we arrived at the farther 
(western) extremity of the long straggling village, which is a 
sort of extension of the western suburb of Ching Chi Hsien. 
Here we found a spacious barn-like inn, in which we gladly 
took up our quarters for the night Big fires of red-hot coal 
balls, burning in scientifically constructed furnaces, made of 
fire-bricks bound round with iron bands, were placed about the 
wide earth floor : round these, seated on low wooden benches, 
were grouped crowds of coolies, the coup cToeily with no other 
light in the vast enclosure, producing a most picturesque effect ; 
nor were we sorry to crowd in amongst them and warm our- 
selves at the grateful glow. Meanwhile our hard-worked 
attendants, who had walked every step of the way, were 
spreading our beds in a quiet corner, where, after a hasty 
supper, cooked at the fire at which we were warming ourselves, 
we were not slow in betaking ourselves to rest ; and well we 
did rest in the sweet mountain air, delightful indeed when com- 
pared with the gilded palace of Itu the night before, with its 
indescribable odours and other amenities. 

September 15. — Set off in mist and rain to cross the Ta 
Hsian Ling, or " Great Elephant Pass," 9366 feet above the 
sea (GUI). 

We are now on the main road to the capital, the details of 
which have been fully described by Gill and other travellers. 
Captain Gill translates the name of this pass or range (for the 
Chinese are not exact in their definitions, and " ling " may mean 
a range in which there is a pass, or the pass proper) as " Great 
Minister's " pass, but he must have been given the character 
wrongly, for not only is it unmistakably " Elephant " in all the 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 20s 

Chinese maps (such as they are), but is it not an undoubted 
fact that Pusien could have ridden his elephant by no other 
pass into China, and did ride him over this pass and so name 
it ? Captain Gill speaks of it as " One of the worst roads I 
ever travelled on. Now zigzaging up the side of a mountain, 
the path was cut in steep steps over sharp-pointed rocks." We 
expected, therefore, not to be able to ride the pony, but the 
little animal behaved splendidly as usual, never refusing any- 
thing he could get his little legs to stretch to ; never halting at 
the steepest and highest rock-step, except occasionally to take 
breath ; a few moments sufficed, and he was off again at a 
scrambling canter. But in truth, compared with many others 
we had gone over, we found this a particularly easy pass, and 
have no doubt about the elephant, whereas many of the other 
passes, the " Rain-clothes," for instance, by which we passed 
down from the Washan into the valley of the Tung, would 
prove a poser to the best-trained animal Pusien could have 
selected for his journey. We were less agreeably disappointed 
in the weather, the rain and mist entirely destroying all chance 
of the view from the summit, which on a fine day must be 
extremely grand. We reached the summit of the pass at nine 
o'clock, and at a restaurant called Tsao Hai Ping ("Sandal Flat"), 
from the number of sandals worn out in the ascent and here 
discarded, we breakfasted. The restaurant, like many in these 
high places, did not provide tea, but only wine, and, as an 
exception, the climate being analogous to that of the Scotch 
highlands, I ordered four ounces of kaoliang, a spirit distilled 
from millet. The spirit is served hot in a pewter pot with cups 
holding about a thimbleful. The cost was fifteen cash, or one 
halfpenny. Our coolies mostly did the same, and all about this 
country spirits are the common drink, and yet, notwithstanding 
their ridiculous cheapness, one sees no drunkenness, and rarely 
any jollity. There is no tax on distilleries ; indeed, theoretically 
they are all illegal; in the centre of the town of Fulin we 
noticed a grand proclamation carved in huge characters on a 
lofty stone tablet prohibiting the cultivation of millet. Why 



Digitized by 



Google 



206 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

these continue to be issued when no dinner party in China, 
whether amongst the rich or the poor, is complete without 
liquor, is one of those things no one, not even a Chinaman, can 
explain. 

This range forms the water-parting between the basins of the 
Tung and the Ya, and one of the feeders of the latter river has 
here its rise, and we followed it down, rapidly increasing in 
size, all the way until we reached Yachow, where it unites with 
the main branch coming from the north-west. The change in 
the aspect of the country was very marked. On the further 
side the land was a barren clay, badly watered and producing 
mostly long grass and weeds, much like many of the mountains 
in Japan, but rare in China. On the hither side we found the 
most magnificent subtropical vegetation, many varieties of ferns, 
very fine-grown tall grass-like canes with red-tasselled flower, 
prettier than Pampas grass while rather like it — the whole 
valley a wealth of greenery, lit up here and there by deep blue 
hydrangeas. Not only is this region better watered than the 
country to the west of it, but the soil of these eastern slopes is 
the true Szechuan red sandstone which from this point extends 
eastwards almost uninterruptedly across to the Hupeh frontier, 
while behind the Siangling it only occurs in patches. It was 
on this spot that the geologist Richthofen was turned back, 
owing to a fracas with Chinese soldiers, the details of which he 
has not thought fit to publish. It is unfortunate for his readers 
and the scientific world generally that his travels were thus 
arrested just at the extreme limit of the red sandstone basin he 
has so well described, for it would have been of the greatest 
interest to have had his views of the more diversified granite 
country beyond, a region that no competent geologist has yet 
visited. We descended by a well-paved, rather steep incline, 
with the clear stream flowing on our right-hand, down 3000 
feet to the village of TaKuan (" Great Barrier"), where we dined 
soon after noon ; and then down another 2000 feet to Huang 
Ni Pu, which we reached at four o'clock, and where we decided 
to spend the night, notwithstanding that the inn was as dirty 



Digitized by 



Google 



BACK IN CHINA AGAIN 207 

and unattractive as the name of the village would lead one to 
expect; for Huang Ni means "Yellow Mud/' Huang Ni Pu "The 
Tavern of Yellow Earth." The floor of the guest-room, where 
we supped, was strewn with horse-dung, and our sleeping 
chamber was far more repulsive ; but it poured with rain, and 
whatever we might have done ourselves, we could not make our 
laden coolies proceed further in the sticky loam, with here and 
there an island of rock sticking out of it, which the path had 
now become. We were down to 3900 feet above sea level, and 
the air felt close and muggy. We had passed two suspension 
bridges on our way down, about three feet wide, the chains 
carried out level with the bank and some distance inland, one 
on each side of the path, back to a spot where a secure anchor- 
age could be found. We also had to cross several bad wash- 
outs of the usual character, one particularly bad and difficult — 
a hundred yards of angular rock fragments lying about loosely 
in a sea of red mud. On such occasions the brick-tea porters 
have to wait until the road is made passable, which is done 
by the neighbouring inhabitants, chiefly tavern-keepers, who 
depend for their livelihood upon the passing traffic. More 
expensive and permanent repairs are effected by the guilds of 
merchants, who make use of the roads for their special busi- 
ness. Here it is the Yachow tea guild ; there — on the way to 
Fulin, for instance — it is the salt guild. We often met indi- 
vidual men performing trifling repairs, who beg a few cash 
from the passers-by, but we never found out that the Government 
or the officials had anything to do with the business. Other 
curiosities noticed on the road to-day were an old woman being 
carried in a peitze (creel) on a man's back to Ta Chien Lu ; and 
deep holes worn in the rocks by the feet of the crutches upon 
which the brick-tea porters rest their loads when stopping 
along the road. Many convenient ledges were so pitted with 
these holes, the work of untold generations of porters, that 
they were bad footing to walk over. Did the whole 60 li 
on foot to-day, but the fresh cool mountain air and home-like 
drizzle banished all fatigue. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XIV 

YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 

The Splendid and Classical District — Large Farmsteads— Noble 
Groves — Careful Cultivation — Exuberance of Triumphal Arches — 
Carrying Coal — Coffinwood — Rich Red Mud — Tea for Savages — 
Yachow — Larky Young Men — Practising with Bows and Arrows — 
Purchasing Pony — Tea Bushes — Tea made into Cakes — How 
Carried— Cost of a Tea Brick— Thibetan Wax. 

September 16. — Off early, glad to get quit of our foul quarters, 
though it still poured, and the little pony having lost a shoe the 
day before, and being now dead lame, we had to go on foot. 
The valley widened out as we went on, and the descent 
became barely perceptible ; in our day's journey of 90 li 
we only descended 1500 feet. In this valley is comprised 
the district of Yung Ching (" Splendid and Classical "), and a 
splendid region it truly is; and as rich economically as it is 
delightful to behold. High mountains surround it, but at a 
distance, being shut off by intervening comically-shaped hills, 
ranging from 1000 to 15,000 feet in height, richly cultivated 
and bedecked with groves of fine trees. The soil is a rich 
purple formed of decaying sandstone, interspersed with patches 
of limestone, beloved of palms, and in places the path was 
a tesselated floor of beautifully marked brecciated conglome- 
rate, in which steps had been toilsomely excavated. Large 
walled-in farmsteads abounded, covering two or three acres 
of ground, the buildings plastered white, the black wooden 
framework showing through. These buildings, which often 
house a family of one or two hundred members, were half con- 



Digitized by 



Google 



••• : ## 
» • z* 

••• . 




o 



Q 

E 

o 
U 

c 



<3 



O 

a* 



h 

•8 



o 



Digitized by 



Google 



* • c 

f • • 

« • 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 269 

ccaled in groves of noble trees. Profound peace and prosperity 
seems characteristic of the region as of Szechuan generally, 
but the people and the villages we passed through were 
repulsively dirty, the women all small-footed, whereas in the 
mountains natural feet were the rule, and the people there, 
though poor, were clean by comparison. All efforts at 
cleanliness and order seem exhausted on the agriculture ; not 
a weed is visible in the fields, the embankments are beauti- 
fully finished, the irrigation perfectly arranged, and every 
inch of ground occupied by an incessant rotation of crops. 
Although we saw no regular tea plantations, but only 
scattered shrubs surrounding the houses, and growing to a 
height of 8 to 10 feet, we bought here the finest green tea 
(experto crede) we had ever tasted. The eaves of the cottages 
sheltered festoons of bright orange-coloured maize, stored in 
the cob, gathered in August; and the rice harvest was in 
progress. The paddy was being threshed out in the fields, 
men and women holding bundles of the straw in their hands 
and knocking out the ear by banging it against the sides of 
a box in which the grain was collected. Close alongside, 
the paddy, after being dried in the sun, was being husked 
in mills driven by the stream, upon the banks of which the 
simple' machinery was temporarily placed for the occasion. 
Each farmer thus completes the work under his own eye 
and is independent of millers and factors. Cotton is the 
only crop wanting, the lack of continuous dry autumn sun- 
shine making this second necessity of the Chinese a precarious 
crop in Szechuan generally; but its place is taken by im- 
ported Indian yarn, which the country people weave themselves 
into a far more useful fabric than our mills turn out. Being 
more loosely woven it is softer and warmer, and the fabric 
is not injured by pressing and sizing as in the steam-manu- 
factured article. We were much struck by the number and 
exuberance' of triumphal (or rather memorial) arches which 
we passed under, an unmistakable indication of the wealth of 
the district 

o 



Digitized by 



Google 



aio MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

At Yung Ching Hsien, the capital city of the district, 
where we dined, the river is about fifty yards wide and 
flows over a shingle bed in eddies of beautifully transparent 
water, with a current of about four knots. It was crossed 
frequently by the housed-in bridges common to Szechuan, 
and its banks were lined in places by groves of fine 
bamboos which afforded a delightful shade. After leaving 
Yung Ching, we met many porters carrying coal to the city 
from mines 30 li distant. They told us that they purchased 
the coal at the pit's mouth for 30 cash a picul and sold it in 
the city for 60, thus receiving a halfpenny a load, or two 
shillings and eightpence a ton for the ten miles' portage, which 
thus exactly doubles the cost. But coal is so universally dis- 
tributed throughout Szeohuan, and so easily accessible, that the 
lack of proper communication is not severely felt, and people 
and officials are perfectly contented with things as they are. 
We also passed many wretched coolies laden with coffin wood 
from the famous Chien Chang Valley, of which Fulin is the 
northern outlet ; for transporting a load of wood across the 
mountains from this latter town, Yachow, a distance of under one 
hundred miles, but which occupies them twelve days, they 
receive 1600 cash (four shillings), the load weighing 240 
pounds. Owing to the ravages of cholera this autumn the 
demand for coffins is exceptional. Towards evening we were 
ferried across a beautiful reach of the river on a raft of 
bamboo, the steep wooded bank on the further side reflected 
in the clear green water, with a pagoda crowning a distant 
height, in the direction of which our path lay. Below the 
wide still pool the river ran in a succession of pellucid 
rapids, amidst stretches of big red, white and green boulders. 
The raft was hauled across by a fixed bamboo hawser. 
Then by a charming path up and down through dark woods to 
the dirty village of Shih Chia Chiao, where, however, we were 
fortunate in finding a new clean inn into which we entered just 
as it was getting dark. 

September 17. — A picturesque but difficult path took us 



Digitized by 



Google 



YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 211 

over the pass that separates the Yung Ching district from that 
of Ya Ngan, " Refined Repose/' as the central district of the 
Yachow Prefecture is denominated. Shih Chia Chiao we 
made 2300 feet above the sea, and we had to ascend 1400 
feet higher to the Fei Lung Kuan, the "Flying Dragon 
Barrier," the Western gateway of the Ya Ngan district. The 
rain came down in torrents, and the wet, muddy, clayey, red 
humus rendered the climb a trial of patience, as we slipped back 
at every step. But what is our patience to that of the poor 
laden coolies who are paid, and miserably paid, by the job ! 
We had too to scramble over several washouts such as I have 
before described ; and it was with no small feeling of relief 
that, after 15 li of crab-like progress, we stopped, at half- 
past seven, at a crowded wayside Putse (shop) for break- 
fast, the name of the hamlet being Ma Liu, " The Poplars." 
The path led on up the hill through luxuriant vegetation, past 
plantations of firs, poplar, maize and bamboo, clusters of rose- 
bushes in flower intermingled with waxy pink begonias and 
lovely banks of ferns, a hot-house vegetation and a hot-house 
air. At 9.30 we gained the summit, 3700 feet above the sea, 
and reached the basin proper of Ya Cheo Fu. Descending by 
the slippery path on the other side, we wound round amongst 
hills adorned with groves of fine trees, their rich dark-green 
foliage contrasting well with the crimson earth. In one place 
A. slipped off the narrow kang (embanked path) into a paddy 
field, the soft bottom of which broke the fall, but left her 
plastered over with rich red mud for the rest of the day. At 
times we followed along by the banks of the brawling stream, 
crossed in one place by a marvellous wooden bridge with a 
three-storied pagoda-like erection crowning its centre arch. 
The road was thronged with laden porters and animals; 
hundreds of mules and ponies, carrying bales of native calico, 
all muzzled, lest they should nibble the corn by the wayside ; 
men, and a few women, carrying salt and also cotton cloth ; all 
these we met going west. In company with us were strings of 
coolies carrying coal to Yachow, and others laden with what we 



Digitized by 



Google 



212 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

took to be bundles of brushwood for fuel, strapped to their 
backs, but which on inquiry we found to be tea: they were 
literally branches of bushes to which a scant number of red- 
brown autumn leaves were still attached, good enough for 
Thibetan savages ! We passed several busy towns, gay with 
painted and richly gilt paifang % and, at length, turning off 
and up through a side gap, a ruined fort and stone archway 
defending the pass, the city of Ya Chow was visible in the 
distance. The site of Yachow, as is that of most Chinese cities, 
is admirably chosen; it stands on a rocky elevation at the 
fork of the Ya and Yung Ching rivers, which almost encircle 
its hoary battlements, and from which, on the northern or 
land-side, the ground falls away in rocky precipices. Descend- 
ing farther six hundred feet by a well-paved but narrow path, 
and having often to step aside for the many Sedan chairs and 
cavaliers that filed along the road, we passed at length under a 
beautifully carved paifatig, with open fretwork in its stone 
panels, and entered at the south gate of the city at five 
o'clock. 

Yachow is one of the most pleasing cities I have seen in 
China; the streets are exceptionally wide and clean, the 
temples numerous, highly decorated and well kept; there are 
many fine trees scattered about, and the well-furnished shops 
are such as betoken the centre of a rich and populous district. 
But the people ! faugh ! There was, however, som ; excuse for 
the rabble which followed us as we ran the gauntlet of what 
always seem endless streets until an inn is found, for we 
were sadly travel-stained, and the fine sunshine, while adding 
to the friendly appearance of the town, had dried the red mud 
with which our clothes were covered into a hard cake. The 
town, too, was filled with military students, whose competitive 
examination was in progress, and we were thankful at last to 
find an innkeeper who was willing to take us in, though his inn 
was full of students. He could, however, only give up a small 
side room, just large enough to spread our two travelling beds 
in. We vanished quickly from the crowd and fastened the 



Digitized by 



Google 



: •• :* 

• • . • i • • • • I • 

• •••••• • • 



• • • • 



•• w - : • 




* Paifang," or Memorial Arch, outside the South Gale of Yachow. 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 21$ 

door; but the window was soon torn to pieces, and our 
servants were nowhere in their efforts to keep away the mob of" 
students. A. was anxious to wash and change her things, but 
all she could do was to sit down on her bed and wait. I went 
out, A. bolting the door behind me, and after many attempts to 
gain the attention of the crowd, at last got a hearing. They 
were a lot of well-dressed, larky young men and meant no 
harm, though they did regard us as Mantse (savages), as I heard 
some of the crowd, who had followed us in from the street, 
informing the students we were. I appealed to them as to 
whether it was Li (manners) to intrude upon a woman's apart- 
ment, and what they would say if I were to do the same by 
them. I said : " I have come out so that you may examine me, 
but please leave the woman in peace." I succeeded at last in 
drawing them off and getting way made for two of our best 
coolies to stand guard at the door and window, so that A. was 
enabled to change and so sit down to supper in comparative com- 
fort Nothing is done in China without noise ; every one shouts at 
the top of his voice, and a European, to carry any weight, must 
do the same ; hence, to any one unaccustomed to China the 
proceedings might have seemed those of a murderous riot A. 
was however accustomed, and so was not needlessly alarmed. 
After we had supped I went out into the spacious guest-hall of 
the inn, in which some fifty young men were assembled, mostly 
occupied in trying each other's bows and arrows, a target hung 
to a curtain at the upper end of the hall being lit up with 
torches. We soon made friends, and I only then showed them my 
revolver, having, of course, first carefully extracted the cart- 
ridges. They pleaded earnestly that I should fire it at the 
target, and I had difficulty in explaining to them that the vis 
inertia of the hanging curtain would not stop the momentum of 
a bullet, as it did most effectively that of the arrows. I also 
negotiated the purchase of the pony, who was still lame, and 
whom we had latterly been unable to ride, and, with the assist- 
ance of my new-found friends, who took an intense interest in 
the bargain, eventually purchased him for fifteen taels cash 



Digitized by 



Google 



*i4 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

down. We were to go on from here by rafts, and our land 
journey was now at an end, but we were so pleased with the 
little animal's temper, pluck and endurance, that we determined 
to secure him for future journeys. Although a pony is almost 
as expensive a luxury as a Sedan chair in this land, where it 
costs less to keep two men than a horse, yet the advantage of 
the latter, as far as seeing the country is concerned, is incom- 
parable ; so we detached one of our men to lead him overland, 
hence to Chungking, and then proceeded to pack up for an early 
departure on the raft in the morning. 

September 18. — Yachow is the centre of the brick-tea trade, 
and we cannot quit the city without saying a few words about 
it, although, as far as we were concerned, we contented our- 
selves with what we saw of its mode of transit, and did not care 
to delay a day in order to visit the factories, whose proprietors, 
too, would not have been by any means pleased to see us, with 
a train of unruly students at our heels. But those readers who 
have followed us so far, if they have not read Baber's exhaustive 
paper on the subject, published by the Royal Geographical 
Society in 1882, may perhaps be glad if I venture to inflict upon 
them a recapitulation of the most interesting facts regarding 
this important business — a business over which Chinese dip- 
lomats have been engaged in a prolonged dispute with our 
Indian Government, 

The area of country engaged in producing tea for the 
Thibetan market, of which Yachow is the centre, embraces 
about 3500 square miles. The trees are grown on the hill- 
sides or in the hedge-rows of the fields, and, though abundant, 
are not conspicuous. They are scrubby and straggling plants, 
very different in appearance from the carefully tended bushes 
of Eastern China, and are allowed to attain to much greater 
height, reaching to 9 or 10 feet on the average. The coarser 
leaves are about 2\ inches long. The trees yield tea available 
for market in the fourth year of growth and for many subse- 
quent years. The harvest is ready in the end of June, and 
there are three subsequent pickings ; the best is of the young 



Digitized by 



Google 



YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 215 

upper leaves from trees of all ages ; the second consists of the 
leaves of young plants, and the third includes everything else 
that can be spared, being mostly leaves and sticks with a scant 
proportion of coarse foliage. The Chinese are epicures enough 
to retain all the first quality for themselves, and most of the 
second, asserting that the Thibetans, whom, by the way, they 
regard as savages, would not appreciate them. The tea for 
Thibetan consumption consists, therefore, entirely of the merest 
refuse. This sells in Yungching for 2000 cash a picul, the 
common tea drunk by the poorer classes in the neighbourhood 
costing nearer 20,000 cash a picul. 

Having purchased this tea-brushwood, the manufacturers 
proceed to make it up for the ignorant Thibetan. The leaves 
and twigs, already sun-dried, are steamed in a cloth suspended 
over a boiler. The mould stands close by, four stout boards 
set on end and secured with bitts, the interior having a section 
of 9 inches by 3$. Inside it is placed a neatly woven 
mat-basket, somewhat smaller in section than the mould; 
the steamed and softened twigs and leaves are dropped into 
the cavity by small quantities at a time, and, a little rice- 
water being added to agglutinate the mass, it is consolidated, 
layer after layer, by forcible blows from the wooden rammer, 
shod with a heavy iron shoe. The coarser sticks are dried and 
ground to powder, and interspersed ad libitum among the 
conglomerate of leaves and twigs. The cake, with its enve- 
lope of bamboo matting, is then thoroughly dried over a fire, 
the ends are closed up, and it is made into a pao, which at 
Yachow measures about 3 feet in length, and weighs 15 catties. 
On arrival at Ta Chien Lu these cakes are cut into portions 
termed chuan or bricks. 

The packages are conveyed to Ta Chien .Lu by tea-porters 
or on mule back. A porter carries twice as much as a mule, 
but a mule travels more than twice as fast as a porter. The 
man's burden is arranged on a light wooden frame disposed 
along the whole of his back, and rising in a curve over his 
shoulders and high above his head, being supported by a 



Digitized by 



Google 



216 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

couple of slings, generally made of coir, through which his 
arms are passed. The great weights that can be carried in 
this manner are certainly astonishing. As Richthofen writes : 
" There is probably no road in the world where such heavy 
loads are carried by men across high mountains. I was 
assured that some men carry 18 poo — 324 catties." (We 
ourselves counted several loads of this number, but the usual 
quantity was twelve to fourteen: and Baber mentions one 
freighted with twenty-two of the large Yachow packages, and 
adds that, although a dried poo weighs considerably less than 
eighteen catties, yet this man could not have had on his back 
less than four hundred English pounds.) They make a journey 
from Yachow to Ta Chien Lu in about three weeks, and earn 
from 200 to 300 cash a day, according to their loads, returning 
usually empty-handed, and, of course, at their own expense. 
The statistics so conscientiously collected by Baber, which he 
carefully details, lead him to the conclusion that the annual 
quantity imported into Ta Chien Lu was about ten million pounds 
English, of a value there of Rs. 1,800,000, or £160,000 sterling. 
In addition to this, considerable quantities, as well as silks and 
other goods, are smuggled across the frontier in the train of 
the Chinese officials accredited to Thibet, of whom the Thibetans 
say : " They come to our country without trousers, and go away 
with a thousand baggage-yaks." 

The cost of a small poo of four bricks Baber gives as 
follows : 

Eleven catties of leaves, Ac 200 cash 

Dues on permit (at Yachow) 50 M 

Dues at Luting bridge and Ta Chien Lu , 36 „ 

Freight from Yungching to Ta Chien Lu . 320 „ 

Preparation and packing (say) . . 100 ,, 

706 cash 

A brick of common tea, weighing about four pounds, sells 
in Ta Chien Lu for 2 mace, and in Batang, eighteen days 
further, for 1 rupee — nearly double; and, by the time it 
reaches Lhassa the price is said to be nearly doubled again. 



Digitized by 



Google 



YACHOW AND THE BRICK-TEA DISTRICT 217 

With this ratio of geometrical progression, if tea was ever 
carried overland to Europe, it must have been literally invalu- 
able by the time it reached there. But the above figures show 
that the taxation derived from the trade by the Chinese 
Government is a most moderate one. In fact, compared with 
the exactions of European or American customs and excise, all 
likin and customs duties throughout the Chinese Empire are 
imposed on a most modest scale. 

There is one most useful product of Thibet we have omitted 
to mention, and that is sealing-wax, of which we laid in a 
stock at Ta Chien Lu ; this wax softens at a very much higher 
temperature than European sealing-wax, and so can be used 
freely in tropical countries. The Thibetans apply seals to all 
their boxes and packets, and seem all supplied with this wax. 
In this connection it may be mentioned that their method of 
writing is much the same as ours, and travellers can hardly 
make them more valued small presents than steel pens, pen- 
holders, and English paper. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XV 

RAFTING ON THE RIVER YA 

Fall in Tu— Raft— Red Walls, Green Fenns— Yellow Lilies- 
Tortoise Gorge — Waves wetting ns np to our Knees — City of 
Coffins— Parting from our Coolies— Thousand Buddhas Precipice — 
Figures half Life Size— Indian Type— Bamboos acting as Sounding- 
boards— Thirteen-storied Pagoda — Junction with the Tung— China 
Inland Mission — Wine Export — Boat Bargaining. 

September 18. — Yachow we made to be 1700 feet above the sea, 
and Kiating 1050. Thus the fall in the Ya between these two 
points is about 650 feet in a distance of some 80 or 90 miles, 
or, roughly, 7 feet per mile. Compare this with the fall 
from Chungking to the sea — 630 feet for a distance of 1500 
miles — and it will be seen that we must have had a fine current 
to carry us on our homeward journey. And, indeed, we found 
the river a succession of turbulent rapids, with huge breaking 
waves, far fiercer than any of the famous rapids of the navi- 
gable portion of the Yangtze. There were, however, numerous 
reaches where the river widened out into comparatively calm 
stretches of deep transparent water, flowing between tree-clad 
banks, most delightful to float down in the balmy summer air. 
The Grand Highway, uniting Thibet with the capital, here crosses 
the river by a raft ferry, and continues overland in a north- 
easterly direction ; whereas our course was now south-east, at 
right angles to the road we had been traversing since quitting 
the banks of the Tung. The body of water was about half, or 
perhaps two-thirds, that of the Tung, and drained a more open 
and friendly country by contrast. The gorges cut in the yield- 



Digitized by 



Google 



RAFTING ON THE RIVER YA 219 

ing red sandstone were very picturesque and pretty, but lacked 
the forbidding sublimity of the stupendous limestone ravines 
through which its twin sister forces her way, before they unite 
to form the main constituent of the Min a few miles above the 
walls of Kiating. 

We engaged a big raft to convey ourselves and all our 
belongings to Kiating, a two days journey, for 4 tads (16s.). 
It took some time to get our baggage safely stowed and lashed 
on a narrow central platform, raised some 18 inches above 
the floor of the raft, and to get the crew together ; and it was 
ten o'clock before we actually got under way. The raft itself 
was composed of a series, each of twenty-five bamboo canes 
laid together horizontally, their bases, about eight inches in 
diameter, forming the stern and their points the bow ; these 
were curled upwards and formed a neat and effective prow in 
breaking the big rollers we passed through. Although we had 
chartered the vessel for our own party exclusively — twelve in 
all — yet, more Sinensi, the captain could not resist taking some 
additional passengers with their luggage, and some merchan- 
dise. These, with the crew of four men, brought the number 
up to about twenty ; and the raft, when we started, was liter- 
ally under water. We had to go on board with bare feet and 
turn up our clothes to avoid the wash of the waves ; but the 
feeling of delicious repose after our long toilsome land travel 
would have reconciled us to much more than this slight dis- 
comfort. And there was no danger, for we were on literally a 
tubular lifeboat, 66 feet long by 1 1 feet beam, and 8 inches 
draught As we glided away down the tranquil reach, the 
hoary city walls fading from view until nothing but its sur- 
rounding amphitheatre of distant blue mountains was visible, 
we found ourselves making straight for a steep wooded range, 
about 1000 feet high, at the foot of which we entered a beautiful 
lake-like expanse, with no visible outlet before us. We now 
left the smiling open country, with its green lawns and pros- 
perous villages of white houses, relieved by the red walls and 
curling roofs of many a picturesque temple and pavilion-crowned 



Digitized by 



Google 



220 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

bridge, and suddenly dashed into a cleft in the hills and found 
ourselves unexpectedly between the overhanging walls of a 
most lovely gorge. The rich red sandstone formation, with its 
horizontal stratification and vertical cleavage, has lent itself to 
the formation of a zigzag cutting through the range which the 
river traverses in a series of six striking, regular, rectangular 
reaches, with a slight rapid at each of the sharp angles. The 
red walls were beautifully hung with dark-green ferns and 
creepers, among them many bunches of yellow lilies. Unlike 
the muddy Yangtze, the water was a clear green, and, as each 
successive turn opened out a fresh view, we voted the Ya the 
prettiest of the many beautiful rivers which are the crowning 
adornment of this unique region. The name of the gorge is 
the Wu Kuei, or " Tortoise Gorge," so called from the unmis- 
takable resemblance to that, to the Chinese, mysterious animal 
of a huge stalactite on its right wall. Numerous waterfalls 
from the cliffs above completed the picture. Below this gorge 
we descended some tremendous rapids, with huge breaking 
waves which wetted us up to the knees, and it was a pleasure 
to see how our raft tore through them, with a snake-like motion, 
as it ascended and descended the rollers, smoothing them for 
the moment like oil as it passed over them. Our captain had 
taken the precaution of landing all the passengers, except our 
two selves, so as to lighten the vessel and render her more 
buoyant. We had to wait a long time below each rapid for 
these men to catch us up, fast as they tried to run. 

We did the forty miles to Hung Ya in about five hours and 
tied up here for the night, under a boulder bank cemented 
together by the roots of fine banyan trees, as also loquats, 
growing out of its top. The city of Hung Ya was familiar to 
us by report from the carpenters from this district, whom we 
had met so busily at work on Mount Omi, but any number had 
been left behind, and these were all hard at work making 
coffins, which seemed the sole occupation of the inhabitants of 
the suburb in which we took up our quarters for the night. 
We found an inn here ; a spacious range of buildings with 



Digitized by 



Google 



RAFTING ON THE RIVER YA 221 

many courtyards, but it was so crowded with prepared coffins, 
and others in process of manufacture, that we had to climb over 
them to get to the room allotted to us at the back, and when 
there, we had to use coffins to lay our beds on and had a 
coffin to sup off. They were all made of shamoo (Cunninghamia), 
the planking about eight inches thick, and cost 7 taels (say 
30s.) a piece unvarnished. The walled city itself stood about 
a mile inland, separated from this suburb by a grassy flat, 
evidently subject to overflow by the river; the ground on 
which the city is built being about 30 feet higher, a steep 
flight of steps leading up to the south gate, through which we 
entered. We found it a nice clean well-to-do city, with wide 
streets. The principal thoroughfares were festooned with 
cypress boughs, and tables, with candles and incense burning 
on them, were set out in the streets at intervals. The poor 
people were making New Year, they said, to drive away the 
pestilence which was decimating Hung Ya as it had decimated 
Chungking, Kiating, Cheng Tu and the other principal cities of 
the province, and the idea of celebrating an imitation of the 
New Year festivities seems to be to turn over a new leaf and 
purify the country from evil spirits as at New Year time. The 
gods are propitiated with fasting and prayer, and the sale of all 
flesh food and the slaughtering of animals is strictly forbidden. 

September 19. — Set off soon after dawn on our life-boat, which 
was lightened by the setting ashore of our passengers as also 
the four carrying coolies whom we had engaged on Mount Omi 
for the round trip, and for whom this was the nearest point for 
them to reach their home from. They went off on the opposite 
right shore, pleased with their earnings and dressed in the 
sheepskins they had bought so cheap at Ta Chien Lu. The 
valley now opened out still more, the river flowing between 
undulating hills, highly cultivated and well wooded, the right 
bank being formed of the outermost northern foot-hills of Mount 
Omi, whose distant mass, as seen from this point, and when 
occasionally visible through the haze which seems always to 
prevail in Szechuan, reminded us by its appearance of the 



Digitized by 



Google 



222 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Lushan mountains behind Kiukiang. About noon we entered 
another gorge, or rather gate, of red sandstone cliffs, known as 
Chienfo Ngai, or "Thousand Buddhas Precipice," the whole 
surface of which had been panelled out into niches containing 
images of innumerable Buddhas. A fine road, 6 feet wide, 
had been cut out along the cliff side, executed, according to an 
inscription in the rock, from the fifteenth to the twenty-fifth years 
of the reign of Kien Lung, and again restored in the fifteenth year 
of the reign of Tao Kuang. The cost had been defrayed by the 
citizens of Hia-kiang Hsien, in which district this celebrated 
cliff, together with the neighbouring town of Fo Ngai Kai, are 
situated. We noticed six donors of 50 taels each amongst 
the list of subscribers — large sums for these parts. The figures 
were exceedingly well cut, about half life-size, some smaller, 
and were remarkable for the distinct Indian type prevailing ; 
narrow waists, limbs showing their outline through gauzy 
habiliments, and tall Hindoo headgear ; many necklaces on the 
bare bosoms of the female figures, which are quite opposed to 
Chinese ideas of propriety. Others were seated with a leg 
across the knee/ and in other informal and improper attitudes, 
according to Chinese ideas. Many of the panels are very 
ancient, and their carvings undecipherable ; others appear to 
have been touched up recently. It was a very striking sight, 
and we were glad to embrace the opportunity of our captain 
stopping at the village to land cargo and make purchases, to go 
ashore and secure some photographs. The crowd was not 
aggressive, our only danger being that in their anxiety to see 
what we were doing, they might push each other off the narrow 
ledge into the river, in which case we might have suffered as 
the indirect cause of the trouble. Hence we dared not stay 
long, nor do all we wanted. From here on, the stream was 
quieter, and the rapids insignificant when compared with the 
grand cataracts of the day before, but we made good progress 
notwithstanding. We had to content ourselves with told rice 
on board the raft, but to-day, about dinner-time, we noticed a 
noise as of frying in fat, and thought our ingenious cook must 



Digitized by 



Google 




c 

03 



I 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 



RAFTING ON THE RIVER YA 223 

have rigged up a furnace in the stern behind the luggage. We 
discovered, however, to our surprise, that the crackling noise 
came from the rolling of the boulders over the river bottom, the 
sound being transmitted through the water, the contact of which 
with the hollow bamboos, acting like sounding-boards, produced 
this marvellous noise. Yesterday the bamboos were mostly 
submerged, but to-day, being well out of water, they resounded 
like organ-pipes. The noise was constant, showing the shingly 
bed to be constantly in motion. We passed a thirteen-storied 
square pagoda, such as are only seen in Western Szechuan, and 
were struck with the wealth of magnificent Hoangko trees 
(Banians: Ficus infectoria) along the banks. At length we 
traversed the whirlpool formed by the junction of the Tung and 
the Ya, and so completed our circuit of the valleys of 'these two 
fascinating rivers in just sixty days. The hitherto pellucid 
waters of the Ya now became turbid through admixture of the 
milky water of the Tung, which again two miles lower down are 
all merged in the thick red mud of the Min at Kiating. This 
latter city we reached in safety at four o'clock, having taken ten 
hours to traverse the forty miles from Hung Ya— just double 
the time which the same distance occupied yesterday. We 
were most hospitably received here by the members of the China 
Inland Mission, who have now obtained a roomy, pleasantly 
situated establishment in this, one of the most pleasing of 
China's cities, and right glad we were, while delayed here 
transhipping to a junk bound down the Yangtze to Chungking, 
to escape the amenities of a Chinese inn. 

These rivers are navigated by bamboo rafts exclusively, and 
these have arrived by evolution at the perfection of strength 
and lightness, while possessing the valuable quality for rough 
navigation, that of being limber at the same time. Our captain 
informed us that his raft was calculated to carry 30,000 
catties freight, or just 18 tons. They can take no loads up- 
stream, but on our way down we met many rafts being 
arduously tracked up against the current, laden with huge 
empty wine jars, in which the forty thieves could have found 



Digitized by 



Google 



224 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

ample refuge ; there being a large wine export from the rich 
districts of Ya Ngan and Hung Ya. 

September 20. — All day settling about the boat to go on in. 
We had written from Ta Chien Lu to the banker on whom we 
had a credit here, to engage room for us in a boat to leave 
to-day ; we found a large! roomy, laden cargo-boat all ready for 
us : the deck-cabins, which had been reserved for our accommo- 
dation were spacious, fully equal to that of the ordinary Yangtze 
kwatse, but the price to be paid for the week's journey down 
stream to Chungking! 60,000 cash, was exorbitant ; so, finding 
the captain was immovable, we repudiated the contract and 
ordered that a small passenger boat should be hired to start on 
the morrow ; negotiations for this were almost concluded when 
the original skipper offered to take us for half the sum the 
banker professed to have agreed for, and so on we went 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER XVI 

FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 

Leaving Kiating— Rapid Setting on to Rocks— Beautiful Picture in 
Black and White— Many Bnddhas— City of Refuge— Mantse Caves 
—Colossal Buddha— Sites of Yangtze Cities— Sui Fu— China Inland 
and American Baptist Missions— Pouring Rain — Dreaded Whirlpool 
— Buying Sugar at Na Chi— Shouting at Tiger Rapid— Another 
Colossal Buddha— Luchow the Beautiful— China Inland Mission — 
Dangerous Rapid— Beautiful Country— Dark-Green Orange Groves — 
Distilleries — Graveyards — Sugar Cane — River-favoured City — 
Oranges, nothing but Oranges t — Cat Gorge — Couchant Lion — Siao 
Nan Hai— Kwanyin's Shrines — Rock Fortress of Fu Ton Kwan— 
Mooring at the Gate of Great Peace. 

September 21 we went on board, but only started on Sep- 
tember 22, when our laoda got his crew together at last and we 
were off at 7.30, sixteen men rowing us down the swift current. 
We shot across and passed down the dangerous rapid which 
sets towards the feet of the colossal Buddha, past the group of 
red-walled temples and monasteries peeping out through the 
dark foliage that crowns the purple cliffs, and so all too quickly 
passed out of Loshan Hien, the district of the "Joyful Moun- 
tains," as that of which the city of Kiating forms the centre is 
well named ; and then entered a wide tranquil reach, reminding 
us, together with the dark Szechuan haze overhead, of Green- 
hithe reach on the Thames, which it about resembled in size, 
and in the green wooded hills sloping down to the water's 
edge. Its Gravesend was below in the shape of a busy shipping 
town called Tsu Ken T'a (rapid), and immediately below it 
we drifted down a long continuous rapid, or rather "race," run- 
ning between lofty boulder banks, to Taosze Kuan ("Taoist 



Digitized by 



Google 



226 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Sanctuary"), a vertical red cliff, with picturesque temple on its 
summit, and with outlying rocks, upon which the rapid sets 
direct, and which we shaved by a hair's breadth, notwith- 
standing most vigorous rowing. We were, however, informed 
that most junks shaved these rocks as closely, and that not a few 
came to grief. Below this again was Tieh Shih Pa (" Ironstone 
Bank"), overhanging red sandstone cliffs, 500 feet to 600 
feet in height, crowned by an elegant Buddhist temple, em- 
bowered in trees. At ten, we passed the market town (Chang) 
of Mo Tse, a picturesque place, situated on a low red bluff, and 
full of trees and temples ; behind was a curious knoll of sand- 
stone, its wall-sided top covered with forest, and its steep talus 
terraced to the water's edge ; then Cha Ue Tsze ("Spear Fish 
Point "), a long, big rapid, with high waves setting in to the 
right bank. We passed more of the thirteeen-storied square 
pagodas of Indian type, peculiar to this region ; and, at three 
another picturesque market town, called Ni Chi Chang, Mud- 
stream Market ; an hour later the wide reach of Siao Chia 
Wan (" the bight of the Siao Clan "), which terminated in an 
eight-knot rapid, tearing through a hedge of fantastically 
shaped rocks ; to Kan Peh Shu ("Dry Cypress"), a large, busy 
town, making a really beautiful picture, with its black-and-white 
houses and many-coloured temples, set in a frame of rich dark 
semi-tropical foliage, with a back-ground of precipitous moun- 
tain, their vermilion and scarlet faces shining through the 
green vegetation. Wide terraces of bright red sandstone steps 
lead down to the water's edge, and these were covered with a 
busy, chaffering crowd, clad to their heels in the long blue gown — 
de rigueur in Szechuan with the commonest coolie — their heads 
enveloped in blue-and-white turbans. From here on, the hills 
on both banks closed in upon the river, which ran between a 
natural stone bunding, terminating in a convenient ledge, raised 
far above the highest summer flood level, along which ran the 
highway; above this the steep terraced talus piled against the 
overhanging precipices, their tree-topped summits forming the 
sky-line. We tied up at sunset in the quiet reach of Tun To 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 227 

Chi! in heavy rain, having come 290 li — say 90 miles — in seven 
hours. 

September 23. — Weighed, or rather cast off, into the stream 
at half-past six, in pouring rain, and, the river immediately 
below being clear of dangers, the crew were left in comfort 
under the removable house which protects the fore part of 
the junk, but which, of course, is ordinarily removed in the 
daytime to enable them to work the vessel. We passed Chiang 
Chio Chi, a village set in an amphitheatre of conical hills, 
looking like gigantic ninepins, below which the river flowed 
between vertical walls of ochre rocks, in which again were 
many Buddhas carved in square niches ; then past Kuan Tao 
Chi, a town with an elaborately built chat, or walled-in City of 
Refuge, crowning the summit of the mountain, at the base of 
which the open village was built. Many Mantse caves were 
cut in the face of the bare bulging rock-cliffs, handsome stone 
flights of steps led down to the water, and the intervening 
ravines were spanned by symmetrical stone bridges. Niu Shih 
Ren (" Ox Stone'Side "), another picturesque town on the right 
bank, with a clear river flowing through it, surrounded with 
bare hill-tops, covered with unsightly graves, was passed at 
eight o'clock ; then, rounding an orange-cloured cliff, with a 
colossal Buddha cut in its side, we sighted the important mart 
of Suifu, situated at the junction of the Min and the Yangtze 
proper — on the right bank of the former and left of the latter. 
It was now nine o'clock, and we had thus come 90 /1, say 
27 miles, in three hours. 

Suifu, as it is universally called, or Hsu Chow Fu, as it is 
officially designated, is most advantageously situated at the 
junction of the two great rivers, the Min and the Kin Sha 
(" Gold Sand "), which here unite and form the mighty Yangtze. 
At the time of our visit the Min carried the larger body of 
water, and its ruddy stream occupied fully two-thirds of the 
river-bed below the junction, the other third being distinctly 
defined by the yellow waters of the Kin Sha. This latter has 
its sources much farther west, and so is termed the main river 



Digitized by 



Google 



228 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

by European geographers. Both branches rise in Thibet, the 
Min coming from the north-west drains the western slopes of 
the Thibetan plateau by the Tung and the Ya ; the north fork, 
which unites with these at Kiating, drains the mountainous 
region to the north! of which Sung Pan is the centre, irrigating 
on its way the celebrated plateau in which stands the provincial 
capital, Chtagtu. The site of Suifu, at the junction of two 
large navigable rivers, is analogous to that of Chungking and 
the majority of the other great cities that line the banks of the 
"Long River/' as the Yangtze is often marked on native 
maps. And as, too, at Chungking, the Yangtze and the 
Kialing are locally known only as the Great and Small Rivers — 
Ta Ho, Siao Ho — so are the two rivers called here ; but it is 
significant that at Suifu the Yangtze is the Small River and the 
Min the Big River. Next to Chungking, Suifu counts as the 
second largest distributing centre in Western Szechuan. It 
was, further, the most southerly point of our journey ; we had 
come south from Kiating, but we now turned round sharp to 
the north-east, Suifu being in latitude 28° 40', and Chungking 
in 29 33'- 

The view of the city from the river is charming ; situated on 
a steep rocky slope, with a wealth of fine temples, pavilions and 
gardens standing on rocky points on both sides of the Min ; one 
particularly elegant four-storied building with pierced tracery in 
its stonejbasement, and wide, curling, out-jutting eaves projecting 
from each floor, attracted our attention, and the name of a tower 
— Ting-yueh Lo (" Listen-to-the Moon Hall ") struck us as being 
as picturesque as the building which its decorative gold characters 
graced ; we were a little disillusioned on landing, however, to 
find the place occupied as a distillery. For the continuous 
heavy rain had decided our laoda to tie up here, thus enabling 
us to go ashore and examine the town. We found wide streets, 
good shops, and remarked great varieties of very fine bamboo- 
matting exposed for sale; this is used by the Chinese for 
sleeping on and rolling up their bed-quilts in, but would make 
a beautiful and durable floor-covering. The China Inland and 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 229 

American Baptist Missions have large establishments here, 
and seem to be on a pleasant footing with the people ; we 
called on the former and were glad to find the members in good 
case and well satisfied with their location, in the midst of a 
beautiful country and friendly population. 

We got off again at one o'clock, our laoda unhousing the 
forward deck notwithstanding the rain, and started rowing 
down river. As we turned to the left, rounding the high, 
precipitous hills which form the opposite point, the green hills 
that make the back-ground of the city rose up one behind the 
other, until the whole scene was suddently cut off from view by 
the projecting headland, and we entered a tamer but still rich 
and pleasing country. The valley widened out, giving room 
for extensive plantations of sugar-cane, the horizon bounded by 
regular ranges running generally parallel to the river, about 
2000 feet or more in height. We passed the towns of Nan 
Kuang and Li Chuang Pa, both on the right bank, with a very 
wild rapid running between them, at which lifeboats are 
stationed; passed more handsome temples with fine trees, 
mostly the magnificent Hoang Ko lining the water fronts, and, 
at five o'clock, tied up under the walls of Nan Chien Hsien, 
having made 1 10 /*" in four hours. 

September 24. — The city of Nan Chi is built upon the only piece 
of flat ground we had yet seen, its well-preserved crenelated 
walls running straight along the low river bank, behind which 
projected the curling roofs of many fine temples — some with 
red, some with black-and-white walls, but all with the elaborate 
roofs loaded with coloured figures and involved scroll work, so 
characteristic of Szechuan exuberance. The gates were adorned 
with two-storied pavilions, and wide stone staircases led down 
to the water side. It continued to pour throughout the night ; 
the mat roof leaked and my bed was soaked, and the ther 
mometer fell to 66° as we cast off at early dawn, the black 
outline of the towers and battlements massed against a 
half-lit gleaming grey sky. Soon, as the morning coal fires 
came to be lit, columns of thick yellow smoke ascended on all 



Digitized by 



Google 



230 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

sides from the sulphurous coal, and, mingling with the river 
haze, quickly enveloped the town, obliterating the fine etching 
pictured to us at the start We coasted along a fine lofty range 
on the right bank, running E.N.E. and W.S.W. and sloping 
steeply down to the water, its crimson flanks covered with fine 
woods, bamboo groves, and bare patches whence the kaoliang 
(tall millet) had just been reaped — its summit hidden in the 
clouds. At 8.30 we passed the celebrated rapid and dreaded 
whirlpool of Ngao Kan Tse, situated a little above the small 
town of Kua Tan Tse, on the right bank of the river. After 
this we continued under a high range of steep conical hills on 
the right bank, about 1000 feet high, and past grand walls of 
red rock with rich wooded talus running down to the water ; 
past rafts of fine bamboo drifting down with large crews of 
men housed in a shed built amidships, and steered with sweeps 
of bamboo, their blades constructed of split bamboo woven into 
a flat surface. At Na Chi Hsien, a busy city on the right bank, 
we tied up in the rain, our laoda and our boy going ashore 
to purchase sugar, for which this is a great mart The city 
boasts a number of temples with red walls and roofs of 
heavy green and yellow tiles; also an elegant hexagonal 
pagoda, the Chinese improvement — and a vast improvement 
it is — on the Indian pattern that prevails from here west- 
wards. As usual near large towns, the hills behind were 
bare and treeless, entirely abandoned to the elaborate but, 
when seen in illimitable numbers together, most tiresome 
and unattractive mausolea, partly hewn out of the rock in situ, 
partly built up of carefully dressed and carved stones quarried 
alongside. Their monotony was relieved alone by a fine range 
of turreted temple buildings standing in a walled enclosure on 
the slope of the hill, and containing many fine trees. The 
Yung Ning river, as we were locally informed, but the Chung 
Shui ("Clear Water"), as it is called in maps, falls in here from 
the south, flowing through a fine wooded ravine. Below the city 
are a number of bad reefs running parallel with the river bed, 
across which the current sets in a very dangerous manner, 



Digitized by 



Google 




Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 231 

needing hard rowing and a quick helm to avoid them. Several 
herons stood on exposed pinnacles of rock, and lifeboats are 
stationed at the most dangerous points. This rapid is known 
as the Hu Pa Shian, or " The Tiger." We rushed through at the 
rate of ten miles an hour, and it was a relief when the shouting 
ceased and the crew dropped down on the deck to rest, and let 
the vessel spin her own way in the eddies below. Another 
colossal Buddha now became visible on the right bank, freshly 
gilt, reminding one of the big joss (the late Prince Albert) in 
Kensington Gardens at home. This Buddha kuans or guards.the 
rapid of Kwanyin Pei (" Goddess of Mercy Reef"), which flows 
past his feet At the foot of the rapid stands the snug-looking 
market town of Shin Peng Chang, with a fine three-arched 
bridge with carved parapet spanning a small affluent which here 
falls in on the right bank. Adjoining is a picturesque temple 
perched on a rocky bluff, with a handsome flight of steps 
leading down to the river. 

Turning a bend, we now came in sight of the important city 
of Luchow, built at the junction of the To River and the 
Yangtze. The To is a large river coming in from the north, 
and by it is brought down the bulk of the Tse Liu Ching salt. 
We had crossed it some fifty miles up, at Nei Kiang, on our 
way to that curious region of " Self-flowing Wells." The main 
stream of the Yangtze, already reddened by the contributions 
of the Min, is dyed a still deeper purple by the addition of the 
To. Luchow, "The Beautiful," stands on the left bank of 
the To, facing the descending stream, which thus pours forth 
its wealth at its doors, and the town presents a noble appearance 
as it stands on rising ground looking up the reach. The 
configuration of the ground is such that, to a traveller bound 
down, it looks as though the voyage was to be continued up the 
wide To River, as the main stream of the Yangtze impinges 
straight on the north and south range and is deflected sharp off 
to the right, turning suddenly south-west. Luchow is built 
along and up the curve of the hills which form the barrier, and, 
with its many temples and groves rising tier upon tier from 



Digitized by 



Google 



232 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

the water, and its battlemented walls, its height rising behind a 
mass of orange trees, with steep green mountains in the distance, 
affords another of the perfect pictures of Upper Yangtze towns, 
of which we have seen so many, but of which we never tire. 
On the right bank opposite the city is a fine suburb, dominated 
by the beautiful monastery called Ta Fo Sze, the " Monastery 
of Great Buddha," an exquisitely proportioned, three-storied, 
black-and-white building, resting against steep hill-side and 
buttressed by wide-spreading wings of lower buildings, all of 
wood, and surrounded by an extensive and most luxuriant 
grove of huangko (walnut) and other trees, besides the usual 
firs. We tied up under the walls of Luchow just before noon, 
and, as our laoda had business here, we were given two hours 
to go ashore and inspect the place. It is seldom that Chinese 
towns improve on nearer acquaintance, but as regards Luchow, 
we had no fault to find in this respect : the streets were wide 
and clean, the shops good, and the people civil. Many trees 
and gardens were attached to the private residences, or kung- 
kuan, and one of these had been rented by the China Inland 
Mission, affording them a spacious and pleasing and airy 

residence. We were glad to hear from Mr. and Mrs. , 

the incumbents of the post, that people and officials were 
friendly, and that no difficulties had been placed in their way in 
renting houses or otherwise — a very agreeable state of affairs 
as compared with that then ruling the treaty port of Chungking. 
We untied and shot off into the stream again at 2 P.M., passing 
the suburbs in which stand the Government Salt Gabelle offices 
and warehouses and a military camp. All the downward-bound 
salt junks here change their crews. 

After rounding the point and watching the picturesque city, 
with its many-coloured and fantastic roofs, recede into the 
distance, we dropped down rapidly another twenty miles and 
came in sight of the old town of Luchow — now abandoned for 
the more convenient upper site by the water— -crowning the 
summit of a steep hill, about 500 feet high, and of which 
nothing but the bare walls now remains. Shortly afterwards 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 233 

we came upon the Kuan Kou, a dangerous rapid, which 
sets round islands by a rock-infested channel, and where the 
crew had to row with might and main against the set in order 
to keep the vessel in the safe north channel. Lifeboats are also 
stationed here. We moored below the rapid, but in a very 
strong current, necessitating many stakes being driven firmly 
into the shore for us to moor to — at a small market town called 
Li Tu ChL Made 310 ff, say ninety-three miles, in ten rowing 
hours. 

In the shops at Luchow we noticed many cornelian necklaces, 
real and imitation. These and horn combs seemed a speciality 
there. 

September 25. — It was dark as our laoda cast off into the 
stream, but the eastern sky looked bright and the clouds high, 
so we hoped, at last, for a fine day. Our laoda evidently 
intended to make Chungking to-night, if possible, and so save 
a day's rice for his crew. To do this he would have to make 
450 It (say 135 miles) ; but soon after daybreak the rain set in 
again so heavy that at seven o'clock we tied up under the walls 
of Ho Kiang Hsien, and the forward house was quickly erected 
as a shelter for our dripping crew. Ho Kiang, the capital of 
the district of " United Rivers/ 1 is situated on the right bank, 
at the junction of the Chih Shui (" Flesh-coloured Water ") 
river, which here falls in from the south. The city is small, 
but prosperous-looking, and stands on rising ground, with a 
fine stone embankment and broad flights of steps protecting it 
from the river. The late floods had, however, undermined the 
masonry, the foundations of which were very poor as compared 
with the solidity of the superstructure. At ten the sun came 
out for the first time since leaving Kiating, and we made 
another start, floating down through the beautiful country, the 
tall sugar-cane and the dark-green orange-trees set off by the red 
earth, which, contrasted with the blue sky above, looked a vivid 
red, especially in the freshly hoed patches now preparing for 
the opium seed. We had passed in safety the Lien Shih 
Rapids (" Concatenated Rocks "), and at noon entered a lake- 



Digitized by 



Google 



234 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

like expanse— the Chu Kia To (" Reach of the Chu Family ") 
— with a square pagoda, then past the large village of Sung 
Chai, almost entirely hidden in trees. At two we reached 
Shih Sen (" Stone Gate ") 9 where the river narrowed to a pass 
between red cliffs, large decorative inscriptions cut in the rocks 
on the right bank, and a fine seven-storied pagoda, pu-ing % or 
perfecting the fungshui of the left bank. Thence to Chung 
Peh Sha (" Central North Sandbank "), an agglomeration of 
towns, stretching a couple of miles along the water front, with 
many conspicuous buildings — all distilleries. The amount of 
land in Szechuan given up to the luxuries wine and opium 
is the despair of the authorities, but a striking evidence of the 
wealth of the province. The hills behind were hideous with a 
vast expanse of grave mounds, looking in the distance like a 
sea of green molehills. One sees never a tree in the wide 
graveyards that surround the cities : the graves are too closely 
packed to leave room for any vegetation round them, and the 
graves themselves have to be kept clean, the duty of doing 
which is strictly inculcated, and for this purpose there are 
several recurring festivals set apart during the year. 

Towards evening we came to the busy town of Yo Chi, on 
the right bank. Here the strata cease to be horizontal, and a 
yellow sandstone and shales with crumbling limestone take the 
place of the red. The strata, running north-east and south-west, 
and dipping to the south-east at an angle of 25, contain an 
inferior coal, which is mined in the primitive Chinese manner. 
We shot the rapid of Lung Men (" Dragon Gate "), turning 
round twice in the whirlpool below. The land, mostly cleared 
of the lately reaped maize and kaoliang, looked bare, exposing 
wide surfaces of steep clean red hills, crowned by walls of 
cliffs, forming natural chat, or fortresses. The patches of 
sugar-cane were scattered about in small symmetrical planta- 
tions, the canes planted in bunches, like the paddy in the 
paddy-fields. It was after dark when we tied up under the 
walls of Kiang Chi Hsien, a busy town on the right bank, in a 
reach running north and south, our course to Chungking from 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 235 

this point being almost due north. Distance, 290 li (say 
87 miles) in ten hours rowing. 

September 26. — The roofs of the many red-and -yellow tiled 
templets and the huge square tower-like pawnshops of the 
" River-favoured " city glittered in the rising sunshine above 
the dark walls as we cast off again into the rapid stream. The 
town is favourably placed, facing 'and slightly inclined towards 
the running water, and well screened beyond by a wall of red, 
orange, and ochre-coloured cliffs [on the opposite shore ; the 
slopes above these covered by a forest of orange trees, with 
rich-looking farm houses, white, with black-tiled and highly 
decorated roofs, embodied in groves of tall, curving, feathery 
bamboos, whose delicate tracery is outlined on the white walls, 
peeping out from amongst the rich foliage. A lofty thirteen- 
storied pagoda stands conspicuous on a very steep conical 
bright red mountain on the left bank— one of the peaks of a 
range rising to about 1200 feet, all cultivated to the summit. 
The right bank here is comparatively flat, low hills only rising 
behind the town. 

The valley now soon became filled up with the thick yellow 
coal smoke of the breakfast fires, and we had to turn the next 
bend before we again got a view of the surrounding scenery. 
Tungkuanyi ("Stage of Imperial Couriers 1 ') was the next place 
that arrested our attention, a picturesque town situated in a 
rocky bight. A huge erratic cubical rock mass lay on the bank 
before the town — " It grew there," said our Chinese — in which 
was a recess with a gilded Buddha carved in it, kuan-ing the 
river. Oranges, and nothing but oranges, covered the steep 
hills on both sides of this reach, with fine many-winged farm 
houses scattered among them. It was eight o'clock as we shot 
round a corner and entered the Mao Er Hsia, or " Cat Gorge," 
again named after a stalactite on its walls. The scenery sud- 
denly becomes very wild, the walls are vertical, and coal mines 
reappear. The towing-path runs high up the cliff, along a fine 
cornice road which leads to the entrance of a three-storied 
temple hollowed out of the cliff— half sandstone, half limestone. 



Digitized by 



Google 



236 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Alongside the temple, an enterprising man has carved out a 
distillery, which was in full swing as we passed. The face of 
the cliff is about 400 feet high. A fine lion couchant of harder 
rock stands detached between the path and the river — a 
colossal natural monument which it is difficult to believe is not 
a work of art. Immediately below the gorge the river widens 
out into a lake-like reach, known as the Siao Nan Hai, or * Small 
South Sea." Near the left bank is a small, rocky, most pictu- 
resque island, beautifully wooded and adorned with a range of 
temples, much like the celebrated Little Orphan Rock on the 
Lower Yangtze. The " South Sea " proper is the term under 
which Buddhists speak of the island of Pootoo in the Chusan 
Archipelago ; the island sacred to the Goddess of Mercy for a 
thousand years, since the days of the Buddha-revering dynasty 
of the Tang. Here Kuanyin has her special home and is 
eminently responsive to prayer; but she has special emanations 
in smaller " South Seas " which are scattered about through the 
eighteen provinces, where the devout may hope to gain her 
intercession more surely than in the innumerable temples in 
her honour to be found in almost every town. The river here 
at this season is nearly a mile wide, and ;the reach is curtained 
in on the right bank by a a thousand" hills, whose peaks 
simulate the hundred island mountains around Pootoo. We 
passed an extensive boulder bank in mid-stream, its lower end 
planted with the cane ; its upper end alive with gold-washers ; 
sugar and gold produced from one shingle bank in the middle 
of the river by this indefatigable people ! 

Another picturesque town on the right bank is Ue Tung Chi, 
" Fish Cave Stream," off which runs out a rocky reef, producing 
a rapid with a sharp three-feet fall in the middle; then on 
through reaches bounded by sandstone cliffs, only slightly 
exposed above their talus which falls in slopes, just cultivable, 
to the water's edge. Then the rock fortress of Fu Tou Kuan 
loomed up out of the foggy atmosphere of die great city, 
and before noon we were moored alongside the wide stairs of 
two hundred steps leading up to the Gate of " Great Peace/ 9 



Digitized by 



Google 



FROM KIATING BACK TO CHUNGKING 237 

and a few minutes later were back in the home we had quitted 
just eighty days before, and down again to the depressing 
altitude of only 500 feet above sea level. Our river journey 
from Kiating, a distance of, roughly, 400 miles, with a fall 
of 500 feet, had occupied little over four days — truly lightning 
speed. 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 



Advantages of a Walking Tour — Changed Temper of People— Deep 
Hold of Buddhism— Safety of Travel— Advantage of Native Dress- 
Uncommon Steepness — Climate of Szechnan — Gridironed by Streams 
— Rise of Yangtze— Cost of Journey — Tribute Verse— The Snow- 
guarded Treasure Peaks — Road to the Capital— Marco Polo's Sindafu 
— Chinese Degeneration — Manchu City — Main Yangtze according to 
Chinese— Irrigation of Chengtu Plain— Mantze Villages — Kueichow 
Ponies — Thibetan Sheep — Yaks — City of Sungpau — Foreign Missions 
— Dyangla Source of Yangtze — First Acquaintance with Sifan — Their 
Villages— Sifan Eccentricities— Hearths, Tsamba— Order and Neat- 
ness — Morals — England's Fear of Responsibility — Brick Tea — 
Chinese Destruction of Timber— Diminished Rivers — Snow-guarded 
Peaks — Crossing the Mountains — Hundreds of Green and Blue 
Marble Basins — Spick and Span Shrines— The Shrine of the Snow 
Mountains— Junction with the Suiking River— Natural and Artificial 
Obstacles to Traffic— Quartz Mining — Likin Examinations— Transit 
Passes — Lungen City — Magnificent Gorge — Eagle's Cliff— Amphi- 
theatre of Limestone Mountains — Roman Catholic and Friends* 
Missions— White Salt— Private Salt Wells— Filth and Opium. 

Thus ended what we both agreed was the most delightful and 
interesting tour we had ever made. The setting out into the 
unknown was an undertaking, but, as our journey progressed, 
we gained health and confidence, and proved the great thera- 
peutic virtue of continuous exercise in the open air. We soon 
learned to despise the real discomforts of Chinese inns, their 
dirt and their innumerable inhabitants of the human and other 
species. Compared with a tour in Europe, one enjoys the 
inestimable advantage of having no railway to tempt one to 
deviate from the strict path of rectitude, comprised in walking 
or riding the allotted distance; and no luxurious hotels- 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 239 

encouraging one to loiter by the way or eat one's self into indo- 
lence. The scenery comes home to one, as it can only do on a 
walking tour; one comes in contact with people and with nature 
in a way that modern facilities of travel rarely allow the traveller 
in a foreign country to do. And if these people are not all that 
could be wished, still, it must be admitted that they form a study 
of endless interest, and that much can be learnt from them. Of 
those whom we had occasion to employ, I can but speak in 
the highest terms. The good temper and obliging disposition 
of our followers was unfailing, notwithstanding hard work, wet, 
hurry, and discomfort, most trying to Chinamen. Unfortu- 
nately, the fear amongst the upper and learned classes that has 
been aroused by the unprecedented activity of various missionary 
bodies that have invaded this province of late years has led to 
misrepresentations of our objects, and to the circulation, by the 
more unscrupulous, of downright falsehoods about us. The 
desired effect in frightening the common people and alienating 
them from us has been attained only too successfully ; and it is 
sad to one who, like myself, travelled in the province ten years 
ago, before this influx, to note the difference. Then I never 
heard an uncivil word ; now one is constantly jeered at by the 
rabble, and a favourite amusement of the small boys in the 
villages round Chungking is to draw crosses in the path, hoping 
that the advancing pedestrian may not dare to tread on them. 
The erection by the missions in Chungking, in conspicuous 
sites, of strange-looking buildings, which interfere with the so 
strongly implanted fungshui superstitions of the natives, was 
one of the main causes of the Chungking riots of 1886. What- 
ever be the cause, the temper of the people is entirely changed 
for the worse, and successful unpunished rioting has deeply 
lowered the prestige we formerly enjoyed. 

One of the first things which impresses the traveller, apart 
from the fertility of the soil and the plentiful rainfall, with the 
resulting prosperity of the population, is the deep hold that 
Buddhism has taken and the marked traces of direct Indian 
influence. Scarcely a rock — and Szechuan is all rock — that 



Digitized by 



Google 



240 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

has not its Buddhist carving ; not a hamlet without its temple, 
nor a house without its shrine. Hardly a day but worship in 
some form or other is being carried on ; and the consumption 
of incense, sycee paper, and accessories maintains large manu- 
factories, some containing hundreds of workmen. No one can 
assert that the Chinese are not a religious people in this 
province, and Buddhism, as established in China, is a pure 
humanising creed, entirely free from the monstrosities and 
occasional obscenities of Hinduism ; thus the idea of eradicating 
it root and branch, as the worship of the devil, which some 
good missionaries proclaim it to be, certainly seems to me not 
following the teaching of St. Patyl. 

Another fact, not usually credited at home, is the safety of 
travel in China. No weapons of defence are required, and, 
except on one occasion, when I needlessly burdened myself 
with it, my revolver was always packed away in my trunk. It 
is, of course, right to have a passport, but it is never asked for, 
and I have made long journeys without one. The sine qua non, 
as in any country, is to speak the language. Misunderstandings 
generally arise through the arrogance or greed of one's native 
servants. The European traveller in China is ipso /ado a 
reasonable man, and he will find an eminently reasonable 
people to deal with ; but, if he is unable to understand them, he 
is liable to get into difficulties in the most innocent and unfore- 
seen ways. 

The European, away from the coast, attracts far less notice 
in native dress, and, after having made trial of both in many 
long journeys, I am now persuaded of the advisability of 
discarding one's foreign garb when passing through populous 
Chinese regions. On the thinly peopled frontier, and among 
the wild tribes, or in Thibet, European dress commands equal 
respect, besides being better suited to hard travel, and far more 
suitable to the climate, but by the Chinese unaccustomed to it, 
it is regarded as both unbecoming and indecent, and a traveller 
moving in it is fair game for the missiles of the gamins and the 
attacks of the ubiquitous dogs. 



Digitized by 



Google 



• ••• 



• • • 

• • • • • , 

• •• • • 

• • • • 



.::••..••:<.:'••.:••••• 




a 



cu 

£ 



Digitized by 



Google 



• • • • < 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



CONCLUSION 241 

A great deal of the beauty of the scenery is due to the 
uncommon steepness of the mountain slopes and the number 
of isolated peaks. All the way from Ichang westward, as far as 
the Thibetan plateau, there is no tame undulating country. In 
Szechuan the roads go up and down by steep staircases, and 
each short climb brings one to a new point of view. Most of 
the heights are crowned by temples, and the priests, whatever 
their shortcomings in other respects, deserve the thanks of the 
traveller for having preserved the surrounding trees from 
destruction. 

The climate of Szechuan is temperate, and the great extremes 
that characterise the eastern and northern provinces are not 
felt in this favoured region. Indeed, the absence of gales, or 
even strong winds, is most remarkable. The mountain tops 
form no exception, and this renders them such pleasant summer 
resorts. Szechuan is a wide basin surrounded by high, moun- 
tains ; beyond these the gales blow ; but here we are in a sort 
of Sargasso Sea, where the clouds accumulate, but the wind 
that drives them is as unfelt as it is invisible. To the south 
the province of Yunnan — well named " South of the Clouds " — 
is a sunny, windy region, entirely free from the mists and fogs 
which are almost perpetual in Szechuan. Occasionally a 
north-west wind drives back the curtain westward for a time 
and the sun comes out with the full power proper to the latitude, 
but these occasions are rare, and, as a rule, a hazy hot-house 
air prevails and the sun's fiercest rays are moderated by the 
mist. Hence the beauty of the rich green vegetation all the 
year round ; the brown, parched look of China generally, after 
midsummer is past, being never noticeable here. The rainfall 
is evenly spread and seems specially adapted to the constant 
succession of crops all the year round. The bulk of the rain 
falls at night, rendering the morning air fresh and fragrant, 
and although the heaviest showers are in summer, during the 
prevalence of the south-west monsoon, as throughout Southern 
Asia generally, the winter is not a season of almost absolute 
drought, as in the neighbouring regions. The great and sudden 





Digitized by 



Google 



242 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

rises in the numberless rivers that water the province, and 
which find their combined expression in the summer floods of 
the mighty Yangtze, are due mainly to bursts of rain on the 
peripheral mountains rather than to an excessive or ill distri- 
buted rainfall in the basin itself. This basin of Szechuan 
(literally "Four Streams/' but which, reading the character 
idiographically, I should be inclined to render as " Gridironed 
by Streams "), if not a region of perpetual spring, may be said 
to have only two seasons, spring and summer; frost is un- 
known ; snow falls occasionally on the hill-tops, but it never 
lies there, although of the mountains that form the edge of the 
basin many rise above the snow-line. The annual rise of the 
Yangtze is still frequently attributed to the summer melting of this 
snow, but, apart from the fact that snow and ice dissolve slowly, 
while the rises of the Yangtze are sudden and short-lived, the 
coincidence of the rise with the period of the monsoon rains is 
a sufficient explanation ; and, as we have seen, the great rise 
of July 1892 came from a tremendous downpour in Northern 
Yunnan, which wrought great destruction in the province and 
flooded the south fork of the great river which there forms the 
northern frontier of Yunnan. 

While Szechuan thus enjoys a comparatively temperate and 
equable climate, the neighbouring province of Hupeh, on the 
east, situated in the same latitude, is subject to violent extremes 
of heat and cold, flood and drought ; but, as the bulk of the 
crops are grown on the wide plain irrigated by the Yangtze 
and its affluents and the mountains are mostly uncultivated, 
dearth is seldom suffered; on the other hand, the once rich 
provinces to the north of Szechuan — Shtosi and Shansi — 
appear to suffer from a condition of permanent desiccation, and 
recurrent famines are the result, a calamity seldom suffered in 
Szechuan, notwithstanding the fact that, outside the famous 
Ch£ngtu plateau, there is no level land for the indispensable 
paddy, and that its terraced mountain sides are entirely depen- 
dent for irrigation on the local rainfall. 

It may be interesting to add that the total cost of our eighty 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 243 

days outing and some 1300 miles travel amounted to 381,000 
copper cash, equal, at the exchange at the time of our start, to 
£$4 sterling, no small portion of which was expended in the 
portage of the aforesaid copper cash, or of the silver with which 
it was purchased. 

And now I will wind up the lengthy record of a journey 
which gave us so much pleasure with a copy of the tribute of 
rhyme which I presented to the Abbot of Omi, more Stnensu 
For it is the custom of literary pilgrims to present scrolls of 
their own composition — more especially of their caligraphy — in 
prose or verse, to any celebrated shrine they may visit. In 
the present instance the English words were my autograph, but 
I had an elegant Chinese translation affixed and the whole 
pasted on a silken scroll, or " Kakemono," which I trust future 
visitors may find still decorating the Abbot's reception-room. 
The sentiments, inspired by the surroundings, were much 
appreciated by the holy man. 

FAREWELL TO OMI. 

Adieu, sweet mountain girdled with the snow, 

Fair type of Buddha's humanising creed, 
Which some would silence. Rather I would know 

How best thy " Law " to spread in life and deed. 

Who knows ? From thy green slopes to heights beyond 
Perchance a loftier faith may lead some time : 

To-day thy pilgrims hold thy memory fond : — 
The snowy peaks are strange and hard to climb. 

THE SNOW-GUARDED TREASURE PEAKS. 
SHUEH PAO TING. 

Such is the name given by the Chinese to the high peaks near 
the Eastern end of "The Great Snowy Range" (Ta Shueh 
Shan) — the sea of lofty mountains which hems in the province 
of Szechuan from the outer world on the west and north. 



Digitized by 



Google 



244 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Mounting up through the defiles by which it is pierced in more 
than one direction, the traveller arrives at last on the high 
rolling plateau from which I date this letter : — 

Djangla, October 3, 1897. 

Here, in the open, on the edge of the great Thibetan plateau — 
the Ts'ao-ti, grass land, or u prairie," of the Chinese — at over 
10,000 feet above sea-level, and with the thermometer marking 
38 , it is hard to realise that I left Chungking barely a month 
ago, stewing in the damp heat of its close valley at a temperature 
of 98 . Were there a railway, such as brings Calcutta within 
48 hours of Darjeeling and the Himalayan snows, the contrast 
would be still more marked. However, as things are in China, 
the voyage hither, long and troublesome though it be, is not the 
least interesting part of the excursion — an interest which is lost 
in the rapidity of railway travel — and so I do not regret being 
compelled to journey in what our posterity will doubtless call 
prehistoric times, given that opportunity for those close and 
leisurely observations of the country and people, which progress 
at a maximum daily rate of 20 miles (English) has enabled 
the writer to collate for the benefit (he trusts) of stay-at-home 
readers. 

I have again traversed the land road from Chungking to the 
capital of the province, running in a N.W. direction, generally 
over hilly, broken, sandstone country, and, in particular, across 
four limestone "cross ranges/' 2000 to 3000 feet high, such 
as traverse Szechuan throughout, in parallel folds of extra- 
ordinary regularity, in a S.W. to N.E.ly direction. The 
" road/ 1 as behoves a country of perpetual rain, is well paved, 
being mostly a succession of steep stone staircases. Paddy 
fields are terraced up the slopes, and only near the summits of 
the ranges crossed does one find a little wood, and occasionally 
really picturesque scenery : the cultivation is so close and so 
persistent that no room is left for trees, hedges, or grass-plots, 
and only round the farm-houses are to be seen bamboo groves 
and a few fruit-trees, chiefly walnut and apricot. The noble 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 245^ 

Huang-ko, banian (Ficus infectoria), spreads its thick shade 
over isolated hill-tops and gaps, where are local shrines and 
resting-places for the tired coolies who take the place, as 
carriers, of the rail and waggon of the West ; and by whom, in 
these western provinces of Szechuan, Yunnan, and Kueichou, 
thousands of tons of merchandise of every description, native 
and foreign, are annually transported over these busy provinces 
at enormous expense to the merchant, although yielding but a 
bare and poor subsistence to the porter. As an instance, the 
freight from Chungking to Tali, in the neighbouring province 
of Yunnan, amounts to TI3.60 per ton, and this want of proper 
roads, and not the much abused likin, is the real obstacle to a 
more extensive trade and consequent greater consumption of 
"Western" manufactures. 

Chengtu, the capital, is thus reached in eleven days, after 
lodging nearly every night in a walled city, the latter part of the 
journey being up the valley of the To, or Chungkiang, or Central 
River of the Chengtu plateau, which debouches into the 
Yangtze at Luchou, about 100 miles above Chungking. We 
leave this valley at the flourishing city of Kienchou and cross 
the last intervening limestone range by a pass 2500 feet high, 
descending again 1000 feet into the Chengtu plain, and at 
30 li from this, its southern boundary, entering the walls of the 
city itself. I will not dwell long on Chengtu, though it is 
the residence of the Viceroy and an ancient city, with a great 
history. The modern town is little more than a vast aggrega- 
tion of streets, in which the dirt and crowds of Szechuan towns 
generally appear to reach their culminating point. It is hard 
to believe that this place is the Sindafu of Marco Polo, which 
he paints in such glowing colours. China must have shockingly 
degenerated in 600 years if (as there is little reason to doubt) 
the account given of the place by the great Venetian is at all 
accurate. Many and wide-sweeping are the revolutions which 
have devastated the province in the interval, and it is probable 
that outside the vast palace of the old Szechuan kings, now 
used as the examination hall, not a single building of the Han, 



Digitized by 



Google 



246 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Sung, and Yuen periods is now in existence. At the present 
day die Chinese, rich and poor, appear to be living from hand 
to mouth, to build nothing beyond the absolutely necessary and 
to repair nothing; debilitated by the universal opium smoking 
and other vices, they appear to lack both means and energy to 
take an interest in anything beyond their daily material wants. 
The large Manchu city at the west end is of special interest : 
to traverse it one emerges from the network of the densely 
populated streets and alley-ways of the Chinese town into what 
has the appearance of a wide park. The scattered houses of 
the Manchus are tumbled-down enough, but, surrounded by 
trees and grass-lawns, untidy though they be, the place has a 
sylvan and cheerful appearance ; the women with their unbound 
feet are tall and robust, and the men, though, by all accounts, a 
lazy, worthless lot, are healthier looking and more manly than 
the pallid creatures their Chinese neighbours. 

Leaving Chtegtu by its west gate, an almost perfectly 
straight and level path of 120 It (30 miles according to Gill) 
takes the traveller to the northern boundary of the plateau and 
to the city of Kuan. Kuan-hsien is situated at the foot of the 
vast range of mountains (culminating in the snow peaks of 
Hsueh Paoting, 22,000 feet high) which rise abruptly from the 
northern edge of the plateau, and at the mouth of the gorge 
whence issues the celebrated Kuan-hsien river by which the 
Chengtu plateau is irrigated. This river, which has its source 
in the "grassland/' not far from the place where I now write, 
flows through the frontier trading-town of Sungp'an, and thence 
falls 7000 feet in a distance of 200 miles to Kuan-hsien, where 
it at length becomes navigable and is known to foreign 
geographers as the Min river. By the Chinese it is regarded 
as the Takiang, or main river, as distinguished from the 
Siaokiang or Kinshakiang ("River of Golden Sand") with which 
it unites at Suifu, farther 200 miles below. The Chinese 
esteem this as the main river owing to the great amount of 
traffic it carries, the longer branch, or Yangtze proper, as we 
call it, being practically unnavigable above Pingshan, whither 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 247 

it flows in stupendous gorges through wild, practically unin- 
habited mountains. 

The Ch£ngtu plain is irrigated in all directions by the water 
distributed at Kuan-hsien through innumerable channels large 
and small, scarcely a farm or field in the rich plateau being 
without its special rivulet — the whole most scientifically organ- 
ised by a system of dykes, sluices, culverts, and viaducts. At 
times one stream is carried across another running in an oppo- 
site direction. As the Chfingtu plain, although apparently 
level, rises 800 feet in the 30 miles between the capital and 
Kuan-hsien, these streams are all rapid, and, with their inces- 
santly renewed supply of pellucid water, flowing through the 
towns and villages, form a wonderful and pleasing contrast to 
the black slush one has to wade through in the lower Szechuan 
towns outside this favoured district. A special Taotai has 
charge of the irrigation works, which were perfected by a man 
named Li, in the Han dynasty, and his son, known as Li Erh 
Wang ("Li the second prince"), whose temples adorn the heights 
above Kuan-hsien at the mouth of the artificial gorge said to 
have been cut by the latter. Under any circumstances, he was 
a man of wonderful insight for his time ; he has left on record 
the admirable dictum, engraved on a rock in bis temple, " Dig 
out the channels; do not raise the banks," and this, his com- 
mand, has been religiously obeyed every year of the two 
millennia that have since elapsed. This is effected by Chinese 
cheap labour, the water-course being temporarily diverted in 
the winter season by dams of wickerwork filled with boulders 
— gigantic sausages adjustable by hard labour — and the beds 
then dug out, section by section, by gangs of coolies. 

To reach Sungp'an from Kuan-hsien the ravine is entered by 
an easy path along the river bank, when suddenly a steep 
ascent up a roughly paved path takes one over a pass of 5000 
feet, whence one descends into the Mantse country. The 
ravine through which the river flows is inhabited by Chinese 
who occupy towns along the stream, tat distances of about 
three miles apart, as well as the cultivable portions of the 



Digitized by 



Google 



248 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

valley where the slopes admit of maize and buckwheat being 
grown. Beyond these live the Mantse, the aboriginal Thibetan 
tribes, who were finally driven out of this valley in the reign of 
Ch'ien Lung, massive stone forts, now mostly in ruins, lining 
the whole way. On the lofty heights crowning the ravine one 
sees the romantic-looking Mantse villages, with their lofty 
square conical towers, often making a most picturesque outline 
against the sky. As the path ascends we catch glimpses of 
snowy peaks when the clouds lift in the mornings, notably the 
range of the "Nine Peaks" (18,000 feet), which shuts off the 
midway-situated town of Maochou from the Szechuan cloud- 
region, and, after passing which, we enter the delightful, dry 
zone, with its clear, cool, bracing air, warm yet innocuous sun- 
shine, clean roads, and houses fragrant of wood smoke and 
guiltless of the intolerable stenches that make the fortnight's 
journey from Chungking to Kuan-hsien in hot weather a burden 
only to be borne in anticipation of the health-giving change of 
this " Tramontana." 

The journey to Sungp'an, from Kuan-hsien, is made in 
eleven stages; the path is a good one, as Chinese paths go, 
being wide enough for two to pass in most places and often cut 
out n galleries high up along the precipitous sides of the defile 
at a great cost of labour — infinitely superior to the road to 
Ta Chien Lu which we traversed in 1892. I rode a delightful 
little Kueichow stallion, a small but typical Szechuan pony, 
euphemistically called by his tnafu, or groom, " Mengtse " 
("the fast one"). Mengtse is not large, even as China ponies go; 
he is, indeed, absurdly small, standing only 1 1 hands 2 inches, 
but, owing to his bold carriage, looking larger; still one feels some 
compunction in mounting him until one realises that, as a pack- 
horse, he has been loaded daily with 250 lbs. of rice, and carried 
this load safely over the steep mountains that form the frontier 
range between the provinces of Szechuan and Kweichow for 
five years on end without apparent injury. His colour is the 
pure Arab bay, with black points and long black mane and 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 249 

tail. His head is small! the delicate muzzle in contrast with 
the broad forehead and well-developed jaw, while his large, 
prominent, mild eye gives an air of aristocratic serenity to his 
whole bearing. The neck is beautifully arched and delicately 
joined to the head. In his paces he exhibits a staglike security 
of footfall. His back is absolutely perfect, just enough to carry 
a small saddle, and surmounting a round barrel, long and sym- 
metrical His thighs and hocks show promise of any amount 
of strength that may be required of him. Like the horse 
Abeljar, possibly one of his progenitors, " his legs are as steel 
and his hoofs as hammered iron/ 9 

This splendid little stallion, this miniature Arab, carried me 
day after day over the rugged and often dangerous trails of the 
Thibetan border mountains with unflagging spirit and invariable 
good temper. He was very troublesome when, in a narrow 
path on the side of a precipitous defile, we met a caravan 
containing mares travelling in an opposite direction ; then, and 
then only, on the warning bells of native horsemen becoming 
audible in the distance, the whip had to be sharply applied to 
his delicate skin and the voice with decision to his expressive 
ears, when long discipline resumed its sway. I, of course, 
spared his shapely legs, drumsticks of iron, as much as possible, 
getting off at the steep descents and easing him at the rough 
ascents up the rock-strewn bed of almost vertical " nullahs," 
while immensely lightening my own toil by holding on to his 
tail, and so being towed up. In the huts below the snow 
passes, when I took him in at night out of the cold, he would 
kneel down on the straw beside me and behave like the little 
gentleman he undoubtedly is by birth and breeding. Whence 
does this small isolated breed originate, as much distinguished 
from their coarse surroundings as the manly Sifan race from 
the loutish crowd of Chinese that have all but exterminated 
them ? Is it possible that these Kweichow ponies are a 
dwarfed survival from a mob of Arabs brought into China by 
the Turkish followers of Genghis Khan, who aided him to 



Digitized by 



Google 



aso MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

overrun the Celestial Empire in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries ? 

These and other ethnographical problems I leave to future 
explorers to solve. 

The traffic along this road is very great. Besides strings of 
porters (who cost less to feed than mules) toiling along at the 
rate of 5 or 6 miles per day with frightful loads of brick-tea 
and shirtings and piece goods for the Thibetans, and all the 
luxuries of food and dress dear to the Chinese colony at 
Sungp'an as well — all these bound upwards — we met droves of 
magnificent long-horned sheep, now in fine condition, fresh off 
their summer pasturage, and of which 20,000 odd go down 
-each winter to the capital for meat (We unfortunates in 
•Chungking have to put up with goats' flesh. The Thibetan 
sheep barely survive the low altitude of Chengtu, 1500 feet 
above the sea ; we in Chungking are 800 feet lower.) We 
also met droves of yak (the hairy ox), driven by wild-looking, 
though gentle-mannered Si-fan (literally " Western savages "), 
*.*., Thibetans going down empty to Kuanhsien, there to load 
up with brick-tea for the return journey ; mules with packs of 
wool on each flank, troublesome, and often dangerous to pass ; 
•besides innumerable loads of every sort and description of drug 
for which the Thibetan borderland is, in the Chinese Pharma- 
copoeia, most famous. All to the accompaniment of the roaring 
torrent some hundreds of feet below. 

Sungp'an is a walled city of about 10,000 inhabitants, half 
•Chinese and half Mahomedan, these latter markedly notice- 
able for superior cleanliness and neatness in their homes. The 
-city is governed by a Sub-Prefect and has a Brigadier-General 
with 500 men under his orders ; it stands 9500 feet above sea 
level, or almost 2000 feet higher than Ta Chien Lu and Dar- 
Jeeling, and is one of the highest business cities in the world. 
•Its climate is perfect at this season, and even in the depth of 
winter the cold is not excessive; snow falls, but rarely lies 
above six inches, as it thaws and dries in the winter sunshine. 
The river carries floating ice, but the winds are not as severe 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 251 

as they are upon the Thibetan plateau proper. In the height of 
summer the people wear wadded clothes and now they are all 
wearing skins. The Erhfu, or second magistrate, who had 
lived many years at Lhassa, told me that the climate of 
Sungp'an is much the same as at that now inaccessible city. 
Lhassa stands 2000 feet higher than Sungp'an, but in 3 lower 
latitude. 

The streets, or rather the one busy main street, of Sungp'an 
are crowded with Sifan (Thibetan) men and women in their 
picturesque, though dirty, embroidered sheepskins, bringing in 
produce from the surrounding mountains — butter, silk, beef and 
mutton, tsatnba (barley), and skins. All the well-to-do Sifan 
ride, their two greatest ambitions being a good horse and a 
good sword ; they are a pleasing contrast to the Chinese in 
their frank manners towards us, their fellow barbarians, and 
are as universally polite as is the ordinary low-bred Chinese 
rude to despised " yang-jta." There are two foreign missions 
in Sungp'an, one Roman Catholic, one the Thibetan Mission, 
founded by Miss Annie Taylor, two members of which — Mr. 
Neave, an Aberdonian, and Mr. Lorensen, a Norwegian — now 
reside here, engaged in the study of the Sifan dialects. Mr. 
Polhill Turner, the head of the mission, is at Ta Chien Lu. 
It will be remembered that Mr. and Mrs. Turner were driven 
out of this place a few years back with much ignominy, the 
mob, I am told here, having been instigated in their attack by 
the Mahomedans, and few or no conversions to Christianity 
have so far been made in this region. 

My landlord here is a Mahomedan, and he told me an 
interesting story of the memorable siege of Sungp'an in 
1 862- 1 863 by the Sifan, of which he is one of the few survi- 
vors. The city was closely beleagured for eleven months, during 
which time the inhabitants were reduced, he said, to eating 
dead bodies and their skin trunks : at last Sifan let them go, 
but robbed them of all their clothing. The women drowned 
themselves in the river which flows through the town. My 
host, then a lad of 17, escaped, with a few hundred others 



Digitized by 



Google 



252 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

over the great snow pass to Lunganfu. The following year 
the Sifan were besieged in their turn by troops sent up from 
Chengtu ; the city was recaptured, the defenders all massacred, 
and the few remaining Chinese inhabitants returned to their 
homes. Since that event peace has reigned, and the Sifan and 
Chinese appear to be on a most friendly footing and to carry on 
a large trade together. 

Djangla has a beautiful stream of clear water running through 
its main street, two feet deep and about six feet wide ; a stream, 
the Chinese say, which is cold in summer and warm in winter ; 
its source is situated half a mile north of the town, where it 
issues in a constellation of springs, bursting forth out of a soil 
of limestone conglomerate. This is one of the myriad sources 
of the mighty Yangtze, and is well named by the Chinese the 
Po-li-ch'uen, or " Crystal Spring.' 1 Djang-la is the last inhabited 
town on this side the border, and cultivation (potatoes and 
barley) ceases here. Beyond stretches the vast Ts'-ao-ti, 
rolling grass downs, the home of the nomad Sifan and of their 
flocks. The Chinese colony have an ancestral hall here, and in 
its courtyard I was surprised to find a bush of Moutan hua. 
I fancy this is about the highest spot in the world where the 
peony can be found growing in the open-air. Along the stream 
are numerous large, gaudily painted prayer cylinders, standing 
under tiled pavilions, turned by the water : every Sifan home- 
stead is adorned with prayer flags of all colours, but mostly 
bleached white by exposure. Every Sifan carries a brazen 
casket, containing a Buddha, slung round his neck, and every 
Lama has his rosary. A more religious people hardly exists ; 
nor one, I should think, more difficult to convert 

October 8. — My first personal acquaintance with these Sifan 
was made at Hsintankuan (new rapid fort), two days 
journey below Sungp'an, where three men, dressed in loose 
sheepskin robes, the fur inside — and a woman in the 
same, but embroidered with a wide, red hem, and her head 
adorned with a garland of heavy yellow stones the size of 
small apples—- called with an offering of fruit. It was just light, 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 253 

and I was on the point of starting off on the day's journey. 
They came in bowing politely : one man spoke Chinese, and 
informed me that they had come on the previous evening, but, 
seeing me busy writing, had retired. The apples were the only 
good apples I have tasted in China — rosy and luscious. I gave 
them a pencil in return, a present all Thibetans much appreciate. 
In Sungp'an many more called on me, always bearing presents, 
and a wonderful contrast in their polite, reticent behaviour to 
the impertinent curiosity of the Chinese. Like the climate, 
the food at Sungp'an is European in character, and in the cool, 
bracing air most enjoyable after a long course of Chinese slops. 
The Si/an are the purveyors of this part — mutton, from the 
sheep just off their summer feed, truly better flavoured than I 
have ever eaten in London or Paris, sweet fresh butter, and rich 
cow's milk ; Yak beef (hardly equal to English), potatoes and 
parched barley flour (in Thibetan, " tsamba "), which, mixed with 
tea and butter, makes a tasty and sustaining potage. Later on, 
in our excursions to the Ts'ao-ti (grass country), we were 
dependent upon St/an hospitality on the road. I was accom- 
panied by a Chinese who lived in Sungp'an, and had traded 
with the Thibetans for many years, and spoke their language. 

The nomads here live in light tents of cotton cloth, while 
pasturing their flocks in summer on the high plateaus, but their 
homes are in the villages in the ravines, which, during our 
visits, appeared to be chiefly tenanted by the women, the men 
being out with their cattle. The villages are all stockaded, and 
hence termed Chat by the Chinese, each house being in a small 
farmyard enclosure and guarded by the fierce Thibetan mastiffs, 
whose deep-toned growl is far more threatening than the 
incessant bark of the Chinese cur. The houses are built of 
wood, are two-storied, and roofed either with earth beaten hard 
or with rough slates resting on close-set wooden rafters. Below 
are the cattle and above is the human dwelling. In the better- 
class houses, this comprises a main dwelling-room, on the floor 
of which is the hearth ; an oratory, or shrine, gaudily painted 
and beautifully kept, and other smaller rooms, not omitting the 



Digitized by 



Google 



254 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

latrine, clean and odourless, arranged & la Japonaise. The 
roads up to and through the Chat are narrow, muddy paths 
between palisades, as muddy as a farmyard in Essex : this does 
not, however, so much matter, as every one is mounted. The 
first thing upon arriving at the gate is to call upon the lady of 
the house to chain up the dogs. This done, the gate is opened ; 
we tie our ponies up in the basement and ascend the ladder to 
the upper floor. At my first visit, my Chinese companion 
cautioned me that the Si/an were a very eccentric people, who, 
although they were such savages that they had neither chairs 
nor tables, yet they objected to spitting on the floor, and that 
to spit in the fire was an unpardonable offence to them. Thus 
duly warned, I managed to conform to their prejudices in this 
respect. The dwelling-room has the hearth in the centre, and 
the smoke escapes through a chimney, with a spreading wood 
awning or hood at the bottom, similar to that used in the 
houses of the Alaska Indians ; so that one is not blinded by 
wood smoke as with the Chinese. On the way up to Sungp'an 
I was often driven out of the inns into the cold and dark 
outside, waiting until the fires were out before I could venture 
into bed: it is no wonder that one meets so many Chinese 
suffering from ophthalmia, and so many blind beggars. The 
hearth was invariably composed of three large boulders, so 
arranged that the cooking-kettle rested between them; no 
suspension is needed, and, with only the three narrow apertures 
between the stones for the admission of air, the fuel consumption 
is very moderate. A smiling welcome from the bright, active, 
rosy-faced women, who remind me of our gipsies in looks and 
complexion, puts us all in good humour ; cushions are placed 
on the floor round the hearth for us to squat on, and boiling 
water is at once got ready for the buttered tea : this tea, churned 
up with butter, with the colour and appearance of cocoa, into 
which each guest mixes the tsatnba, stirring it to his taste. 
The parched barley-flour is passed round in a big wooden box, 
with hinged lid. On a cold day, I found this a most appetising 
dish, the empyromatic odour supplied by the parching of the 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 255 

grain quite annulling the flatness of the buttered tea. The 
water was stored in large cylindrical vessels of polished brass, 
showing not a speck of dirt, and on shelves round the room 
was arranged a display of brightly polished pewter teapots and 
brass dishes, the neatness and cleanliness of which would do 
justice to a Dutch hausfrau. In the entry, the saddles (and of 
these every well-to-do Thibetan possesses a large assortment) 
are arranged in order on saddle-stands, the brass and silver 
work shining, and the stirrups and bits as bright as elbow 
polish can make them, and without a speck of rust. If order 
and neatness are tests, which is farther removed from the 
primitive age, the Chinese or the Sifan ? If manly carriage, 
good manners, frankness of demeanour and self-respectful 
bearing be a test, then every European will unhesitatingly give 
the despised Sifan the first place. Certainly their hospitality 
to travellers, for which they resent the offer of any remuneration 
in return, is to-day a pleasing feature which, I suppose, must 
unfortunately need disappear as civilisation advances and 
population increases. 

The Sifan are said to be loose in their morals, and Marco 
Polo has described their country as "a fine place for young 
fellows." If this be the case (and I had no means of judging) 
then I can only say that, their reported laxity notwithstanding, 
the men are good-looking and the women frank and well- 
mannered, while the superior chastity of the Chinese produces, 
seemingly, just the opposite result. It would require a good 
knowledge of the language and years of intercourse really to 
understand how their polyandry works in practice, and even 
then one would hardly be justified in dogmatising on such a 
subject. All testimony is unanimous on one point, however, 
viz., that the women, if they indulge in amours, never sell their 
bodies for money in the way the Chinese and the women of 
other countries — called civilised— do. What a sad pity that 
the late Macaulay Mission to Thibet should have been compelled 
to shed the blood of these people ! But still sadder that such 
bloodshed should have been utterly sterile, and that the Mission 



Digitized by 



Google 



256 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

should have been recalled when within a few marches of 
Lhassa. Had the foreign advisers of the Chinese in Peking 
not been listened to, and had the Mission been allowed to 
proceed, Thibet would be open to us to-day, and I feel sure 
that free intercourse would result in our countrymen in India 
{who need Thibet as a real sanitarium) being friends with the 
Thibetans, such as we can hardly become with a crafty, astute 
people like the Chinese — to please whom the Mission was 
recalled when it had already advanced within three days of 
Lhassa. How long will our Indian Government persist in vain 
endeavour to conciliate the Chinese by concessions to their 
amour propre? We seem to fear to tread in the steps of 
India's first great Viceroy, Warren Hastings, who, as we know, 
sent a successful mission to the Teshu Lama as long ago as 
1774. This digression is inevitable, when one is on the 
Thibetan border and feels the way barred to farther progress, 
simply owing to the lack of that enterprise and fearlessness 
of responsibility which distinguished our great forefathers. As 
Jules Ferry said, China is a quantiU nigligeable, and (at least, 
in the Thibetan question) should be so regarded. 

This is the season when herds of patient yaks are beginning 
to come into Sungp'an with wool to be bartered for the brick 
tea which strings of toiling coolies are slowly carrying up from 
Kuan-hsien, a porterage of 200 miles, occupying them over a 
month, and more than doubling the first cost. Nothing is more 
marvellous than that the Thibetans should prize this amalga- 
mation of stalks and sticks, mingled with a few big brown 
autumn leaves, as they do. All the good leaves are first 
picked for Chinese consumption, and, as a tea taster, I venture 
the opinion that the Thibetans would be equally well off if they 
mixed their tsamba and butter with plain hot water. 

Sungp'an, with all its amenities as I have described them, 
is a desolate-looking, unpicturesque place, owing to the absolute 
dearth of trees. The mountains round are denuded even of 
their shrubs, such is the scarcity of fuel. Sungp'an means 
" Fine River," and my Fu-t'on (head coolie-man) on the way 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 257 

up informed me that when, in Ch'ien Lung's reign (early in the 
eighteenth century), the country was definitely opened up by 
the Chinese, the troops had to cut a road through dense pine 
forests, which then lined the banks of the Sungp'an river all 
the way from Kuan-hsien and covered the surrounding moun- 
tains ; but now, in China, wherever there is a stream that will 
float a log, there are no longer any logs to float. P&re Amand 
David, who spent years on the Thibetan border, comments 
bitterly in his Journal de man trotseme voyage on this locust-like 
propensity of the Chinese to destroy every green thing wher- 
ever they penetrate, for when the trees are gone comes the turn 
of the scrub and bushes, then the grass, and at last the roots, 
until, finally, the rain washes down the accumulated soil of 
ages, and only barren rocks remain. This fact accounts for the 
diminished rainfall, the lessened rivers, and the not unfrequent 
droughts in Szechuan proper, droughts formerly quite unknown 
in this favoured province, but now, it seems, of constant occur- 
rence in one district or another. These droughts are the talk 
everywhere. Maochou, situated in a grand open valley at only 
5000 feet above the sea level, formerly produced rice in abund- 
ance, but now only " dry " crops. In North-East Szechuan, in 
the " red basin/ 1 situated at the foot of the mountains, there have 
now been three successive seasons of drought, and the Chinese 
speak of this autumn's harvest as only a " two-tenths crop." 
The diminished size of the rivers is very marked everywhere, 
and fully accounts for the disappearance of Marco Polo's 
magnificent bridge at ChCngtu, where " the Great Khan had 
his Commer, bringing in 1000 gold pieces daily." When the 
monsoon rains do come they produce great torrents and tem- 
porary floods, which subside as suddenly as they arise, after 
doing great devastation, and which the Chinese call CKu-chiao 
(" Eruption of the Dragon "). When I say that Sungp'an is 
utterly destitute of trees, I forget an avenue of magnificent 
cedars in the courtyard of the temple of the tutelary city 
divinity. This shows that the soil and climate are fit for 
coniferse ; yet even these fine trees, should I visit Sungp'an 

R 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



258 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

again, will probably have been felled ; some wretched weiyuan, 
ordered to repair a yanten, will have ruthlessly condemned 
them ; good timber like this must not rot unused. 

It is a wonder where the timber for the houses and for the 
huge cylindrical prayer-cylinders, worked by water-power, 
along the banks of the stream (gaudily decorated and standing 
under roofed-in pavilions) comes from. It must be, of course, 
from remote valleys, and is often transported enormous distances 
on men's backs ; but it is daily growing scarcer throughout all 
China, and will soon be far more valuable than iron. 

The Sungp'an country is cut off from the outer world by the 
snowy range which equally separates the Thibetan tableland 
from China proper as it does from India. By the Indians the 
range is called the Himalaya, or "Abode of Snow." The 
north-eastern extension of this same range is known to the 
Chinese as the Hsuehshan, or " Snow Mountains, 19 a name 
which, describing the boundary range as a whole, European 
geographers would do well to maintain. These snowy peaks 
are not visible from the valley in which Sungp'an is situated, 
but by ascending 1500 feet to the tableland to the west, and 
then turning round and facing east, one sees them towering 
up in all their grandeur. As we see the long row of glacier- 
bearing peaks from an elevation of 12,000 feet, they appear 
fully 10,000 feet higher. The peaks here are called the Hsueh 
Pao-ting ("Snow-guarded Treasure Peaks"). Fine crystals, 
which the Chinese value so highly for making spectacles, are 
found there by adventurous searchers who go up to the snow- 
limit in the summer time and bring back strange stories of the 
poisonous gases which render the greater heights inaccessible 
(the only explanation the Chinese can give of the effects of the 
rarefaction of the air). 

Yesterday morning we crossed this range by the "Snow 
Pass " immediately above and east of Sungp'an, where a dip in 
the range to the level of 13,600 feet gives an easy ascent on 
both sides. A blinding snowstorm from the east blew in our 
faces, and consequently I saw little or nothing of the surround- 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 259 

ing peaks. My pony had great difficulty in keeping his footing 
amongst the loose rocks hidden by the snow, and our guide in 
finding the way, which is marked by cairns. We slept the 
previous night in a hut on the west side of and 1500 feet below 
the Pass, so as to cross in the early morning before the wind 
got too strong. The descent on the east side is very rapid, 
and early in the afternoon we stopped at a farmhouse in a 
finely wooded valley 4000 feet down. I stopped here in 
order to visit the monastery, to the existence of which 
is due the fine forest adorning the valley-side facing our 
last night's rest-house. I left this on my pony at daylight, 
rode down a steep descent, crossed a small stream, the head- 
waters of the Tsungpa River, which debouches in the Little 
River, so called, at Chungking, into the main stream of the 
Yangtze, and then ascended 700 feet through a park-like 
valley, rendered beautiful by a thick growth of rhododendrons 
and coniferae. But the most remarkable feature, and one for 
which I was quite unprepared, is the action of the stream that 
waters this valley. 

Imagine my surprise on finding the path wind through a 
succession of hundreds of pools of all shades of green and blue, 
walled in by smooth marble basins — the water flowing over 
from one basin to the next below, such as I have seen photos 
of in New Zealand. These basins, of all sizes and shapes, rise 
one above the other through an altitude of 700 feet, spreading 
out as the valley widens, and adorned with verdure. The 
heavy solution of lime in the water daily augments the height 
of the walls, and so the depth of the basins. In summer this 
must be a perfect spot for a viUegiatura ; at this season it is 
bitterly cold, and the snow, which covers the ground, spoils the 
effect, as it makes the white limestone look yellow and dingy — 
the only compensation being the beauty which the pines and 
larches display when snow-covered.. 

This temple is Chinese and consequently in a ruinous 
condition : the only present occupants are an old crone, mother 
of the absent priest, and her slatternly daughter, bending over 



Digitized by 



Google 



26o MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

a wood fire, at which we are glad to warm our chilled hands 
and feet and accept a drink of boiling water. We are now on 
the east or Chinese side of the Hsueh Pao-ting from which 
this valley immediately descends. I climbed up a few 
hundred feet behind the temple in the hope that the clouds 
would disperse and give me the front view: they did so 
partially, but not enough to disclose the summits. Speaking 
of ruinous temples, what a contrast in this respect are the 
Thibetan shrines to the Chinese! In the former everything 
spick and span, as in our Christian churches, the pulpit for the 
Lama to read from, the benches and cushions for the wor- 
shippers, the clean pillars and walls, liturgical books neatly 
stowed away in cabinets, the orderly arranged pictures, and 
the whole under lock and key. Certainly they cannot compare 
with the Chinese in true artistic feeling, nor in elegance of 
design ; the lamaserais are gaudy, but tawdry, as indeed are so 
many Roman Catholic shrines in Southern Europe. But they 
are kept in good order, paint is not spared — rather employed in 
too great profusion ; whereas the Chinese seem never to repair 
anything, temple, road, or bridge, until it falls into such a state 
of decay that it has to be rebuilt entirely, or else, as is in these 
degenerate times more often the case, abandoned as a hopeless 
ruin. How is it that xstheticism seems to be everywhere 
correlated with moral decay, while Philistinism is synonymous 
with strength and solidity ? 

Yet we were told that this Huang-lung Sze, which looks as 
though it could hardly stand another winter, is, in the month of 
July, a great resort of Thibetan pilgrims from across the Pass, 
who then camp here in thousands, bringing offerings of their 
native produce to the shrine of the sacred mountain — the 
Hsueh Pao-ting — of which mountain I trust some Whymper 
or other adventurous Alpine climber will ere long attempt the 
ascent, and then let us know the true height and extent of this 
snowy range. 

Tsungpa, October 17. — I am now at the end of my land 
journey and on board a junk bound down stream direct for 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 261 

Chungking, 200 miles distant S.S.E. This place is the head of 
the navigation proper of the western branch of the Kialing, 
which is known on our map as the Fo-kiang, but then geogra- 
phical names of rivers appear to be always unknown to the 
inhabitants, who at every junction of two streams have simply 
their Ta-ho and Siao-ho, the big and little rivers. We have 
so far been following down the Fo-kiang from its source, this 
side the Great Snow Pass, a distance of some 300 miles, to 
its junction with the Suining river on the North-west. The 
united waters of the two streams render this, the Suining river 
(so named from the large mart and district city, Sui-ming-hsien, 
50 miles lower down), navigable here for large cargo junks, the 
stream above being prevented by the numerous rapids and 
shallows from being navigable by other than small boats of very 
light draft. The first boat I saw on the river was at Chinchou, 
140 miles from its source, 2600 feet above the sea, and 800 feet 
above this place, which again stands 800 feet above the level of 
Chungking. But here the larger body of water renders the 
rapids passable by junks, like this one, drawing 4 feet of water 
and over 100 feet in length. Indeed, all the fine rivers that 
intersect the rich province of Szechuan, fed by the perennial 
streams from the snowy range, are well adapted for steam 
navigation. The traffic is enormous, but has to suffer intolerable 
delays, not alone from the natural obstacles, where man-power 
alone is employed, but from the artificial obstacles of the 
ubiquitous likin stations. 

About half-way between Sungp'an and the prefectural city of 
Lungen, near a small picturesque village called Siaoboying (small 
river or side-stream camp), I noticed, all at once, a thick, yellow, 
muddy stream, which I had to ford on my pony, take the place 
of the pellucid burns and torrents, which had been the invariable 
accompaniment of the journey all round from Kuan-hsien and 
over the Pass. This I at once saw must come from gold 
washing, and, on looking round, I distinctly traced a vein of 
white quartz rock in the dark shales through which the stream 
has here cut out a deep gorge — and which vein, with several 



Digitized by 



Google 



262 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

others seen later on, the river has equally cut through. I 
followed up the side stream, and about 300 feet above, where 
the slippery shale path ascends the shifting precipitous slope of 
the main river bank, I found a dozen Chinese engaged in quartz 
mining. They were pounding the quartz with a pestle and 
mortar : the mortar of stone and the pestle of wood iron-shod ; 
the mortar some 3 feet in diameter, the heavy pestle worked 
by four men. They said they gained each 100 to 200 cash per 
day on the average ; sometimes a lucky day gave them 1000 
or 2000 1 Here is a rich field undeveloped. From what I have 
seen hereabouts, and, in fact, all along the Thibetan border right 
round from Sungp'an to Ta Chien Lu, auriferous quartz is 
present in great quantities. And its development may enable 
China ere long to follow Japan in introducing a gold currency, 
thus assimilating herself to the rest of the civilised world, and 
putting an end to the terrible vagaries in exchange which of 
late years have made life in China, to the business man, 
anything but a path of roses. But, so far, the Chinese officials, 
in this province at least, are extremely jealous of any foreign 
help in developing their industries, and we may have long to 
wait before Szechuan emerges from its present state of poverty 
and opium intoxication. 

Hochau y November 3, 1 897. — We are now within a day's boat 
journey, 200 /*, of Chungking, but have to wait till morning 
before we can clear at the native customs, which has more 
red tape and vexatious delays to trade than custom-houses 
generally. Twice each day since we left Taihochfin have we 
had to pull up for likin examinations, for salt, opium, and other 
goods : the amounts payable are trifling from a European point 
of view, but the delays are exasperating to any but Chinese. 
Thus, of the four days journey down-stream from Taihoch€n 
to this place, I find I have spent fully one whole day at likin 
stations — moored alongside the unsavoury foreshore of dirty 
Chinese towns. This likin business is worse than ever since 
the Japanese war, the stations being multiplied daily on every 
river, road, and footpath in the country: they tax the inter- 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 263 

change of products between the neighbouring towns in the 
most cumbersome way — a nuisance to the people and snjall 
profit to the Government. Riding on ahead of my porters in 
the neighbourhood of Mienchau, I pulled up at a likin station, 
a small thatched shed in a grove of bamboos, and, having been 
politely invited to enter and sit down, I beguiled the time 
watching the working of the office. The peasants were 
carrying their tobacco into Mienchau for sale : upon each load 
of 60 catties a tax of twenty-six cash, about three farthings 
sterling, was collected ; each payment necessitated the writing 
out of a receipt in triplicate upon elaborate printed forms in red ' 
and blue type, besides the inevitable haggle over the quality of 
the cash paid. I inquired how many men were required to run 
this tax station and what was the average daily collection. 
Five men and one thousand cash (two shillings) were the 
answers. I remarked that the Viceroy could not get much out 
of 30,000 copper cash a month after his five clerks had been 
fed and paid They laughingly replied : " On some days we do 
better and collect even 2000 cash or more." 

This part of Szechuan produces principally sugar, indigo, 
tobacco, aconite (now exhibiting their tall stalks and purple 
flower), silk, cotton, and every kind of cereal (opium is little 
grown in North Szechuan). Wool, duck-feathers, and pigs' - 
bristles are collected for export, and everywhere detained en 
route by the innumerable likin stations. So far foreign mer- 
chants in Chungking, interested in articles of export, have 
found transit-passes no remedy owing to the troublesome 
formalities attending their issue, and the declaration (under 
pain of confiscation) of the exact quantity intended to be pur- 
chased and other similar devices apparently purposely planned 
to render them nugatory. When will some reformer arise with 
a real grasp of the subject and the necessary power to put the 
finances and currency of China in order, and so increase the 
revenue while lightening the burden on the impoverished 
people ? So far the foreign custom-houses at inland ports, with 
their addition of the obnoxious half-duty, have only increased the 



Digitized by 



Google 



264 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

burdens upon inland traffic for want of a comprehensive scheme 
which ought, one would think, to be based on duties collected 
at the frontiers only, as in all other civilised countries. 

But, worried with likin and customs anomalies, we have 
almost forgotten the Yellow Dragon Monastery which we left, 
11,500 feet above sea level, on October 8. Thence the road 
falls rapidly, descending the valley of the Fo River and falling 
8000 feet in the eight days journey of 150 miles to the district 
city of Chiangyu, which is situated at the entrance to the moun- 
tains on this, the north-east extremity of the unique Ch£ngtu 
plateau, and at 2200 feet above the sea. The road follows the 
river through a narrow ravine which expands in a few places 
and affords "flats" (Pa or ping) upon which stand the few 
Chinese towns of the region, the surrounding mountains being 
still inhabited by the Sifan. Of these the chief are Shuichinp'to 
(crystal market), a small but busy town, and Lung£nfu, the 
prefectural city, whence a road branches off, up a gloomy side 
ravine, to Pik'ou on the Kansu border, 40 miles to the north- 
east, Lung£n is a large walled city, with wide, well-paved streets, 
but comparatively little trade, and has the air of decay which 
pervades so many imposing-looking cities of Eastern Szechuan. 
It possesses a Roman Catholic church and numerous hand- 
some but ruinous temples. Lung£n stands only 3000 feet 
above the sea level. Whereas by the western road, from 
Kuan Hsien to Sungp'an, the ascent is gradual, here, by the 
eastern road (as the Chinese name it), the fall is sudden, being 
10,000 feet in the 90 miles from the Hsuehshan Pass to this 
city. The road itself is fairly good, especially where it has been 
chiselled out of the sides of cliffs. It looks dangerous when 
one gazes down several hundred feet off the unfenced path into 
the roaring torrent in the abyss below, but there is room to 
ride in safety with a well-trained animal ; on the other hand, 
where the path descends and runs beside the river, it is a 
scramble over fallen rocks, very trying to man and beast, and 
over such ground 15 to 16 miles is a good day's journey. 
None but the patient Chinese coolie and his compeer the mule 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 265 

would consent to carry loads of 250 lbs. on their backs over 
such a path, over which goes half the traffic of Sungp'an. 

The approach to Lung£n is through a truly magnificent \ 
gorge ; the most romantic spot is called the Ying-er-ngai, or 
" Eagle's Cliff." Here steep tree-covered slopes, fortunately : 
inaccessible to the woodmen, reach up to precipitous snow- 
covered peaks and afford as fine a picture of mountain scenery 
as can be seen anywhere in the world. At this season trees 
are in their autumn tints, and the russet maples and tallow- 
trees, interspersed amidst the dark-green firs, give colour to 
the view and contrast admirably with the grey rocks and snow 
peaks towering above. After extending at Lungta, the ravine 
contracts again, until finally debouching by the Tenglung Hsia, > 
or " Lantern Gorge," into the plain at Kiangyou. The river here 
breaks its way through a grand amphitheatre of limestone 
mountains, which rise in abrupt precipices from the plain, 
evidently cliffs once abutting on an ancient lake, whose bottom, 
as the waters gradually broke their way through the hills to the 
south, gave place to the now rich Chengtu plateau. The wall- 
like character of the mountains which, running from Kuan Hsien 
south-west and north-east, bound the plain on the north, is very 
marked. On the southern border the country is more broken, 
and, although the ranges here rise to 2000 and 3000 feet, they 
look like low hills by comparison. 

From Kiangyou a day's journey brings us to the flourishing 
mart of Tsung-pa (" Central Flat "), so called from its situation 
between two artificially divided channels of the Fo River. 
This wide " flat " — a peninsular extension north of the main 
Chengtu plateau, in which is included the flourishing city 
of Mienchou — is very fertile, although covered with boulders 
in parts, and intersected by many dried-up beds of ancient 
watercourses. At this place the Church Missionary Society 
have a branch mission, the head centre of the mission being at 
Paotingfu * in the north-east, the residence of Bishop Cassels. 

* This year (1900) the scene of an awful official massacre of mis- 
sionaries. 



Digitized by 



Google 



266 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

Here our road south takes us through Mienchau, a flourishing 
walled city, the centre of a large silk district ; then on to the 
prefectural city of Tungchuan, the seat of a Roman Catholic 
mission; thence to the pleasantly situated district city of 
Shehung, where the "Friends" support a branch mission; 
then on again by a good road through a fine valley and over a 
low pass to Taihochen, the head of navigation proper. At this 
busy town the Roman Catholics have a large establishment! 
church and schools. All this makes five days land journey 
from Kiangyou. The upper course of the Fo River, from 
Mienchou to Taihochen, is lined with innumerable salt-wells, 
which produce an excellent salt; unlike the greyish-black 
product of the celebrated Tszeliuching district in the Kiating 
prefecture, this salt is as white and pure as that from Cheshire, 
but, when I praise its superior appearance, the Chinese 
object that it is not as salt as is the latter. This salt sells 
on the spot for 36 cash per catty (equal to frf. per lb.), but 
before it reaches Chungking the price is doubled by the likin 
to 72 cash per catty. These salt-wells are on the most 
primitive scale, and being here mostly 200 or 300 feet deep, 
as against the thousands of feet at Tszeliuching, require 
but little capital to start and run. Hence each little farmer 
along the river bank appears to have his private well, 
at which he and his family raise the brine by a sort of tread- 
mill. As at Tszeliuching, the brine is raised in a hollow 
bamboo with a valve at the bottom, and is then evaporated in 
iron pans — the whole plant costing barely 100 dollars. There 
being no coal in this sandstone district, the evaporators were 
being fired by flags. Large expanses of reeds are cultivated 
on the boulder flats all along the river to provide this fuel, 
which needs a woman and a boy to be perpetually stoking to 
keep the fire alight. From the fact of the wells being confined 
to the valley of the river, it would seem that its water is needed 
to dissolve the salt iself from the salt-impregnated rock — here 
all soft red sandstone. At Tszeliuching, on the other hand, 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONCLUSION 267 

the wells f stand on elevated ground, but descend, as I have 
said, to depths of 2000 to 3000 feet, where they probably 
touch the bed of a long extinct river, by which the salt has been 
washed out of the soil and converted into brine. Wherever 
produced, it is a source of great wealth to the people and of 
revenue to the Government. 

Returning once more to populous and prosperous Szechuan 
proper, after a delightful fortnight spent in the clean, dry 
country beyond the pass, I am again oppressed by the filthy 
condition of the towns and people — a filth which comes home 
to one most closely in the inns, to which the land traveller is 
compelled to resort, and rendered the more intolerable by the 
damp, muggy atmosphere. One wonders how the people live 
at all in such pigsties as they inhabit; rich and poor alike seem 
quite insensible to decency or the most elementary cleanliness. 
Opium is everywhere, and the opium smoker is as callous to 
appearance as is the drunkard with us ; but while drunkenness 
is happily diminishing in the West, here opium smoking seems 
to be steadily on the increase. The natives themselves say 
that seven-tenths of the population smoke, men and women 
alike. The native opium is mild and much adulterated, and 
thus not so fatal in its effects; but the apathy and laziness 
that are its accompaniment demoralise the people much as does 
drink at home. Add to this the crippled-footed women and 
the dirty children (instead of those delightful children of 
picturesque Japan), and you cannot wonder that, on the first 
night I slept in an inn in the plain, I heartily wished myself 
back amongst the despised Si fan. I could only console myself 
by dropping into poetry (realistic, of course) & la Silas Wegg ; 
and so I conclude by inflicting on my reader the lines that 
came into my head as I lay sniffing the pig-sty and vainly 
trying to sleep. Still, taken as a whole, the journey was a 
glorious change from the stagnation of Chungking, and the 
exercise and fresh mountain air as stimulating physically as a 
trip to Europe. The day will come when railways will give 



Digitized by 



Google 



268 MOUNT OMI AND BEYOND 

residents in the steamy plains of China free access to her grand 
mountains f and then such stories as these of the delays and 
discomforts of travel in the nineteenth century will be deemed 
impossible. 
November i. 



EPILOGUE. 

Back to the damp and the drizzle : 

Back to the filth and the stench : 
Back to the pig-sty-cum-cesspool 

And the slatternly small-footed wench ! 

Barbarians — gentle and simple ! — 

How I long for your firesides so trim ! — 

Who treated the Far-Western savage 
As one of your own kith and kin. 

Why back to the lice* and the bed-bug 

And the paddy's malarial reek? 
Why pitch not my tent on your mountains ? 

Why farther for happiness seek? 

Too soon have I fled your frank greeting ! 

Once more 'mid the sordid Chinese 
I yearn for your smile all too fleeting, 

Your tsamba, your milk, and your cheese. 

Slaves are we who call ourselves freemen ; 

Fate urges relentless our feet ; 
And your health-giving wind-swept plateau now 

Remains but a memory sweet. 

* Chinese pronunciation of our word "rice." 



Digitized by 



Google 



->■»■ 



B 



J / SKETCH MAP 



4 



of 

\f NORTHERN and CENTRAL 

SSE CHmAWo 

to illustrate Mount Omi St beyond 
Showing JCA.J.Littles journeys in 1892-1897. 

Not*. 

y Engliah. Miles . 

*, p ap *o »o eo 19 

1: fc, 500,000 _ 3 9. 3-1 loch. 

Aatkarh rout*. ' — r* — ^ 



29 



28 



110 Oil 



rS.TOUer.F.RGS 



Digitized by 



Google 



\ 



INDEX 



Abbot of Mount Omi, 343 
Arches, memorial, 5, 37, 209 
Arrows, 213 

Babbr, Consul, 65, 129, 134, 139, 146, 

148, 214, 216 
Bamboo matting, 228 
Banyan trees, 223, 229, 245 
Bandits, xzo 

Baptist Mission, American, 229 
Batang, 187 
Boat on Mm river, 224 
Boring, 33 

Bows and arrows, 213 
Brick-tea carriers, 162, 207 

trade and manufacture, 214, 217, 
256 
Bridges, 12, 13 

at Luting, 167, 169 

cantilever, 144 

natural, 126 

rope, 177 

suspension, 60, m, 168, 177 
Brine wells, 23, 29, 266 
Brine-Wells river, 20, 22 
Bronze pagoda, 89 

temple, 88 
Buddha, carvings of, 45, 65, 126, 222 

colossal images of, 38, 53, 231 

" glory of* phenomenon, 101 
Buddhism, 45, 240 
Buddhist temples in Tachienlu, 183 

on Mount Omi, 63, 90, 93 

tolerance, 102 
Building a temple, 93, 96 
Burials, 1 

Camping out in China, 43, 83 
Carpenters, 220 
Cassels, Bishop, 265 
Cattle-grazing, 126 
Caves, 47, 48, 49, 57, 227 



Chairs, Sedan, advantages of, 4, 27, 44 

Chen Chia Ch'ang, 58 

Cheng Tu, 245 

Chiangyu, 264 

Chienchang valley, 146 

China Inland Mission, 56, 102, 223, 

228, 232 
Chinchou, 261 
Chin Chuen river, 174 
Chin Li Kang, 36 
Chin Ting temple, 83 
Chinese industry, 32 
Ching Chi Hsien, 203 
Cholera, 1, 210 
Chungking, 1, 237 
Chung Shui rivet 1 , 230 
Church Missionary Society, 265 
Cities of refuge (Chai), 23, 227 
Cleanliness of Luchow, 232 

of temple, 95 
Climate of Hupeh, 242 

of Omi, 83, 89 

of Szechuan, 241 
Cloudy weather in Szechuan, 233, 

241 
Coal, Z2, 210, 230, 235 
Coffins, 220 

wood, 210 
Coloured natural basins, 259 
Coolies, overloaded, 161 
Coracle, 173 
Cost of tour, 243 

transport of goods, 245 
Cross ranges, 6, 7 
Currency, 4, 182, 262 

Dargbbling, 250 
David, Amand, 134, 257 
Dead, sending money to the, 172 
Deforestation, 41, 134, 195, 257 
Dirtiness of Chinese, 260, 267 
Distilleries, 205, 236 



Digitized by 



Google 



270 



INDEX 



Djangla, 244, 252 
Dogs, Thibetan, 253, 254 
Domestic economy of Thibetans, 254 
Dress, Chinese and western, 240 
Drought, 195, 257 

Elephant pass, 204 
Examination, military, 212 

Feng Yi, 8 
Fires, 73, 80, 87 
Floods, 130, 242, 257 
Foot-binding, 267 
Forest, xo6, 127 
Fo river, 261, 265 
Fu Chu Chang, 157 
Fuel, scarcity of, 256 
Fulin, 145 
Fungshui, 239 
Fu Ton Kuan, 5, 236 

Garrisons in Chinese Thibet, 187 

Gas, natural, 28, 29 

Geology, 174 

Glory of Buddha, ioz 

Goddess of Mercy isle, 236 

precipice, 127 

river, 108 
Golden gate, 117 

stream, 174 
Gold mining, 262 

washing, 236, 262 
Grass cloth, 13 
Graveyards, 1 

mounds, 234 
Grazing cattle, rarity, 126 

Han Yubn Chen, 157 

Harvest, 209 

Hermits, 98, 132 

Hoang Ko (banyan) trees, 223, 229, 

245 
Hochow, 4 
Ho Kiang Hsien, 233 
Horses, scarcity, 113 
Hosie (Consul), 94 
Hsueh Pao-ting mountains, 243, 246, 

Hua Ling Ping, 162, 201 
Huang Mu Chang, 136 
Huang Ni Pu, 207 
Hung Ya, 220 
Hupeh, climate of, 242 

Incivility, 239 
Inquisitive Chinese, 212 
Intercourse (British) with Thibet, 256 



Irrigation, 247 
Itu, 160, 202 

Jung Hsibn, 38 
unks on Min river, 226 
Fo river, 261 

Kialing river, 5 
Kiang Chi Hsien, 234 
Kiating, 51, 223 
Kin Kou river, 117 
Kin Sha river, 227 
Kuan Hsien and river, 246 
Kuan Kou rapid, 233 
Kung Ching, 30 
Kwan-tou Shan, 116 

Ladders on Sai King Shan (moun- 
tain), 127 
Lamas, 163, x8i 
Lamaserai, 183 
Li Chuang Pa, 229 
Lien Sh'ih rapids, 233 
Likin (transit dues), 262, 263 
Liusha river, 154 
Lolos, 85, 140 
Lo Ping Chang, 148 
Lorensen, Mr., 251 
Luchow, 231 
Lunchchanghien, 11 
Lung Chang, 14 
Lung Ch'ih, 11 1 
Lungen Fu, 261, 264 
Lung Men rapid, 234 
Lung Shih Chen, 15 
Lung Tung, 155 
Lu Ting Chiao (bridge), 167, 196 

Macaulav mission to Thibet, 256 

Magistrate at Lu Ting, 197 

Mahomedans, 251 

Maize, 4 

Manchus, 5 

Mandarins, mistrust of, 200 

Manners of Thibetans and Chinese, 

253 
Mantse, 47, 48, 160, 247 

caves, 48, 49, 57, 227 
Market towns, 142 
Marco Polo, 245, 257 
Mastiffs in Thibet, 253 
Matting, bamboo, 228 
Mausolea, 230 
Menia tribe, z86 
Mienchau, 265 
Military students, 212 
Millet, 13 



Digitized by 



Google 



INDEX 



271 



Min river, 52, 104, 223, 227, 246 
Missionaries, 56, 102, 223, 229,251, 265 
Missionary enterprise, effect of, 239 
Monastery, Buddhist, 86, 232 

Taoist, 72 
Money for the dead, 172 
Morals of Thibetans, 255 
Mount Omi {see Omi) 
Mountains of Thibet, 85 
Mudfall, 164 
Mules, 159, 250 
Mummified saints, 79, 91 
Mung Sze Chiao (bridge), 12 
Myriad Buddhas' temple, 90 

Na Chi Hsien, 230 

Nan Chien Hsien, (Nan Chi), 229 

Nan Kuang, 229 

Neave, Mr., 251 

Neuralgia at Ta Chien Lu, 188 

New year (fictitious), 221 

Npoa Kan Tse rapid, 230 

Nine Peaks mountain, 248 

Nun, Taoist, 113 

Omi city, 58 

abbot of, 243 

altitude of, 86, 129 

mount, climate of, 83, 89 

view from, 85, 93, 103 
Omi river, 59 
Opium-smoking, u, 39, 56, 262, 267 

Pagodas, 230, 234, 235 

Pagoda, bronze, 59, 89 

Paifeng, 5, 37, 209 

Pasture, 22, 126 

Peh Ngai Ho, 143 

Perkins, Dr., 125 

Philosophy, Chinese, 92 ' 

Pilgrims, 58, 66, 78 

Pony, 113, 159, 191, 205, 213, 248 

Prayer machines, 252 

Priest, dinner with, 67, 101 

Priests, civility of, 87, 95, 103 

extortion by, 68, 101 
Produce of N.W. Szechuan, 250 
Prostitution, 255 
Public spirit, 129 
Pusien, image of, 63, 92 

Raft, 219, 223 

Rainfall, 130, 156, 241, 247 

Rapids on Min river, 225, 226 

Ya river, 220 

Yangtse, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234 
Rebellion, Taiping, 148, 154 



Relics, 87 

Religion in Thibet, 252 

Szechuan, 239 
Rice, 209 

Richthofen, Baron v., 206 
River beds, formation of, 174 
Rivers of Szechuan, 261 

unpolluted in China, 181 
Roads in China, 192, 222, 244 

to Sungp'an, 248, 264 

repairs, 207 
Robbery of furs, 196 
Roman Catholics, 14, 189 

missions, 56, 137, 188, 251, 266 

villages, 19, 133 
Rope bridge, 177 
Rupees in Thibet, 182 

Safety of travel in China, 240 
Sai King Shan, 123, 129 
Salt, 23, 29, 139, 267 

carriers, 20, 141 
San Chiang Chen, 146 
Sealing wax, 217 
Sedan chairs, 4, 27, 44 
Shamoo-wood, 221 
Sheep, 250 

skins, 190 
Shin Ten Chiao (fossil bridge), 13 
Shin Ta Kai, General, 148 
Siao Ma Fang, 8 
Siege of Sungp'an, 250 
Sifan, 251, 252 
Sindafu, 245 

Sleeping accommodation, 26 
Snow mountains, 258 
Spirit drinking, 205 
Stairs, 3, 5, 244 
Stone buildings, rarity of, 9, 45 
Students, intruding, 212 
Subscriptions, 129, 222 
Substitutes, 35 
Su Chi, 58 
Sugar cane, 234 
Suicides' cliff, 98 
Suining river, 261 
Sung Mow, Mr., 87 
Sungp'an, 250 
Sunlessness, 233, 241 
Sweating system, 35 
Sz' Tsz' Chiao (Lion bridge), 12 

Ta Chang, 8 
Ta Chien Lu, 85, 178, 180 
Tai Ho Chen, 262, 266 
Taiping rebellion, 148, 154 
Ta Liang Shan, 139 



Digitized by 



Google 



a 72 



INDEX 



Taoism, 72 
Taoist hermit, 98 

nun, 113 

temples, 72 
Tarchendo river, 170, 174 
Ta Tien Ch'ih, 125 
Ta Wei, 12 
Taxes, 262, 263 
Taylor, Miss A., 251 
Tea, 209, 2i2, 2x4, 217, 256 

carriers, 162, 207, 214, 256 
Temple groves, 41 

•' of 10,000 years," 61 

oldest in China, 64 
Temples as inns, 76, 82, 83 

at Nan Chi, 229 

in Ta Chlen La, 183 

on Mount Omi, 63 

rivalry of, 93 
Terraces, green and ,blue, 259 
Thibetans, 171, 179, 186, 251, 252, 264 

cleanliness, 260 

morals of, 255 

villages, 253 
Thousand Buddhas' precipice, 222 

shrine, 81 
Tieh Chang Pu, 41 
Tiger rapid, 231 
To river, i8 t 231 
Tolerance, Buddhist, 102 
Trade, hindrances to, 245 
Transport of goods, Ac, 245 
Travelling in China, 238 

cost of, 35, 62, 243 

safety of, 240 
Tsamba, 254 



TsanPu, 6 

Tsao Chiu Fang, 13 

Tsung Pa, 260, 265 

Tsz* Liu Ching, xi, 266 

Tung river, n6, 119, 147, 163, 166, 

173, 228 
Tungchuan, 266 
Turner, Mr. Polhill, 251 

Virgin forest, 106, 127 

Wa Fong Chiao, 8 

Wan Nien Sze, 61 

Wa Shan, 93, g5 

Wa Sze Kou, 173, 192 

Water supply, purity of in Szechuan, 

181 
Wax, sealing, 217 
White Cliff river, 143 
Wilderness, 106 
Will o* the Wisp, 100 
Wine, 130, 205, 206 
Wool, 256 

Ya river, 52, 218, 228 

Yachow, 212 

Yaks, 183, 250 

Yangtze river, 104, 119, 227 

cause of summer rise, 130, 242 
Yellow Mud Town, 207 
Yochi, 234 
Yuantse, Mr., 131 
Yung Ching Hsien, 210 
Yung Chuan Hsien, 9 

Zinc tiles, 107 



Printed by Ballantynb, Hanson & Co. 
London &* Edinburgh 



Digitized by 



Googl^ 



Digitized by 



Google 



THIS BOOK 18 DUE ON THE LAST DATE r 

STAMPED BELOW f 



AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
WILL INCREASE TO BO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
DAY AND TO SI.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
OVERDUE. 



Jh'-i il 1035 


RECEIVED BY 


JUL 21 Ifife 


APR27 1WR 






2*/an54 CB 


CIRCULATION DEFT* 


*»^ - 




... 


,^ 


« . »« **" orq 


^^ 


« — — — '^< 


- 



'•■>>*'. 



'*'*tf 



-ep 



//, 



£ 



-a. 



Digitized by 



Google 



I \^ HI UC I 



6ENERAL LIBRARY -U.C BERKELEY 





Y>igitizedby(